Bus be packed up tight

Ode to you golden bike rider

So special, so clean

I admire your physical attributes 

And wonder what your gifts must be like

The prowess as you knife thru the shared path

So stealthy and pure like crystal diamonds 

The crispness of your uniform

Like tapestry in motion

I behold the beauty and statement made

That we are mere mortals

Thankful for the crumbs

Which fall at our lowly feet

Ride free passionate knight

We delight in the knowledge

That you are out there

Shining as a beacon of athleticism 

A million times bowing 

A million times bowing

So special, so clean

Of course it’s a good idea

It has been just over a week on the new meds.  Had my first blood test and my platelets are still very high, but they expected that.  We will go another week and see if they start to come down.  Otherwise we increase the dosage.  So far I have not noticed any real side effects.  I do feel better when I am running.  Part of the permanent cloud I dwelt in seems to have receded a bit.  That is good news, but I had my knee looked at Monday and will be starting physical therapy soon.  In a nutshell there is arthritis and some cartilage loss in my right knee.  Nothing staggering at this point.  I do feel pain and for now the boiled down version is I have negative zero to the tenth power of flexibility and my ITB is tighter than a thumb up a pig’s nose.  Because of this the thought is the pain primarily on the right of my knee may be less through the PT.  The Doc said to only run 3-4 a day.  So I’ve been mixing in walking at a 50/50 ratio.  It is not too bad.  Looking forward to my first PT session later Monday.

It does seem easier on my knee when I conduct a jog a quarter mile and walk a quarter mile.  Time goes faster than you think.  My biggest challenge is the knee has a problem going uphill no matter if I walk or jog.  Obviously my mind set is I’ll get through all this and line up for the Glacial 50k on 10/11.  If I don’t think I can break 6 hours then I might pass.  

The glimmer of hope I did see was I was doing some 7-8 minute miles on a few short sections on the road.  It came rather easy, but my knee was cooperating then.  Like anyone, I’d love to get to the point that I could actually wheel off a few miles at a time at that pace.  Either way it provided a tiny bit of fairy tale dust that my massive brain went ahead and coded as fact.