First real outdoor ride!

Friday BIKE COMMUTE 9.4 miles
Saturday TREADMILL 30', ELLIPTICAL 30', SWIM 30' and 1300y
Sunday RIDE 20.18 miles in 1:25 on Grant's Trail. Ave 14.1 mph and 128 bpm.
Monday TREADMILL 30' and 1.6 miles, then SWIM 30' 1200y

Kinda like spring has sprung? Yay! Friday just a bike commute. I WasGonna hit the gym before work but failed to get out the door on time. Lingered...

Saturday I started on the TM instead of the elliptical. The TM felt OK but on the elliptical while feeling out what muscles I was using I noted something shift/moving/clicking over the trochanter in the hip. Not on the right side, not really painful, not even noticeable until I feel it with my hand. Then after a swim. Now the elliptical wasn't all the comfy, I wasn't enjoying it and kept it super easy. I'd almost say it pained me? I noted then in the swim that I felt a dull ache in the hip without the pull buoy. But not with. I tried to diagnose it better -- all I could come up with is that I felt it when my left arm extended forward, so maybe a stretch? Was I rolling funny? Banana'ing?

Then the rest of Saturday was pained, I even cut short the dog walk with RM at Francis park because of it. Nuts.

To my surprise on Sunday it was an almost perfect pain-free day! I took Puppy out around noon (after waiting for it to warm up from 39F to 52F) to the Lodge trailhead. Soooo pretty and I was happily overdressed. The trail now extends east a little, I decided to explore that at the end. My goal was 20 miles, I forgot that the trail only goes 8 miles out, it hasn't been extended at the northern end like I thought. So bippity-boppity out to the other end, then wandered off GT on the way back. I went into the side trails to pick up extra mileage and found a new-to-me bike path!

Now my Garmin had been giving me low battery alarms for much of the ride, and I just kept mental track of the numbers. But going off trail throws those numbers off, so I kept mentally begging the thing to hold on just a few more miles. More alarms, but it kept ticking. In it's Garminy sort of way, of course. Found a really nice hill, ended up on Green Park Rd which I recognized as a trail crossing earlier, jumped back on the trail, and headed to the lodge. Once there I needed only 3-ish more miles. The new extended gave me only 0.5. More trail please! So I out-n-backed to distance. At one point I thought it'd be fun to get 20.18 miles, and kid you not I got that distance as I rolled up to the truck!! And when I next glanced at the Garmin it had died! No joke! Wonderful!

No pain, no discomfort during or after the ride. Sunday was kinda golden for the hip!

Now Monday was a test day. I repeated the 30' treadmill and 30' swim without the elliptical. In the dog walk before the gym, I noted some discomfort. A sharp non-pain pain and early in the walk a notable pop like I sometimes get. The treadmill was very mildly pained (very very mildly) and the swim was pain-free. So can I blame the elliptical? JH did warn against using it. But I had to run the test. Er...perform the test.

I'm also happy to say the swim today was a 3:1 ration of pull/other:swim. I did 200's in which 1 lap was swim and the other 3 laps choice. Did mostly pull and just 2 kickboard laps.