I’ve been riding for a couple of weeks now, and it’s going well. I don’t think I lost much fitness, and the clutzy, rusty feeling was gone after a couple of rides. Now it’s just kind of difficult managing the cast on my left had as I ride, particularly when it gets bumpy. I’ve done a couple of road rides each week, and I’ve been hitting 18 mph averages. I’ll probably keep this up even after I can ride without the splint. Off road, I’ve been riding on the middle ring since I can’t shift with my left hand. This means cranking or standing on some climbs that I used to drop down into granny ring for. I’m not sure this is good for my knees.

The thumb is still pretty stiff and sore, and I’m guessing it’s got about 1/2 the strength it used to. I’m betting it will be six months to a year before it’s back to normal. After working though this, I find my self worried about more injury. Not sure what I can do about that, as it seems to come with the territory: age, activity, having fun.

The Doctor gave me the go-ahead to ride again today, though I have to wear the split when riding. I rode for about an hour out in Wilowdale. I have to go pretty slow, due to the split, but mostly due to the loss of strength (or confidence?) in my left hand. I also felt pretty rusty as far as general bike handling goes. That said, it was great to be riding again on such a perfect day.

For the next month I’m planing on doing a mix of trail running, trail and road riding. I think the running has been good, and I need to keep my cardio-vascular fitness up since going slow on the MTB isn’t nearly as solid a work-out.

We’re back from our trip to NH. I’ve got a few photos to work through – here’s one I liked from the latest import off of the Cannon D300. Those prior ones are cell phone pictures.

Matti and Sam were chasing a 3′ garter snake around the edge of a swap over at Bradley palmer. The lost track of it, then they noticed this 6′ long black racer. The cell phone picture doesn’t do it justice – it’s girth looked to be around 4″ – they didn’t try and catch this one.

I ran 4.1 mi in 1:01 – all Willowdale single track trails. My goal was to run as slow as possible for an hour, so I’m pretty happy with that. I’m hoping I can do this 3 times a week or so, and do something easier on the off-days.

Here’s the track on Garmin Connect – pretty nice, Check it out on their site via “View Details”, with heart rate and everything.