Karen at Fifty Four

 That's right, 9.5 weeks after total knee replacement surgery and I rode my bike 33 miles! They were some mighty slow miles, but I didn't it with minimal complaining. I started with the D-paced group on the FFW picnic ride. Then I the half way point, they planned to leave the trail and ride on the road for the remainder of the route. There were two recumbents with us and they do not like riding on the rode with traffic (can't blame them a bit, they are eye level with the car's wheels!!). So they were going to stay on the trail and backtrack to the ride start. I decided to follow them, thinking it would be much safer and a little slower. Great decision. The trail is beautiful coming and going, very shady and calming. I was very proud to go the 33 miles with them. That's Lori, our ride leader, up front, followed by her husband Brian. Lee and Merna are the two on the recumbents. I'm in he very back, behind Merna.

Nine weeks later and I'm able to rejoin the club rides!! This first one was a D pace and only 15 miles. My next club ride will still be D pace (I may be there for a while) but it's going to be 25 miles! Feels good to be back out here. Getting on and of the bike is difficult and extending my leg for stopping is a bit painful, but I'm sure that will fade away in time. With my friends El on the left and Karen M on the right. Now to work on dropping some weight so I don't look so squished into my jersey 😢

Beautiful spring weather in Florida for spring training. Too bad the Rays lost. I sure hope their regular season games look better then this one did! I navigated the walking and stairs with my still-healing knee fairly well. The sitting was not good though. Thankfully we had an empty seat on the end of our group so I was able to stretch that leg a little. Even if I had two good knees, I'm not sure I would have been comfortable in those seats, not much leg room, my knees were touching the seat in front of me.