Back to some exercise (finally)

From late June until late August, I barely exercised: 16 workouts in 60+ days.  In a typical year, I average 220-240 workouts (it was higher until about 5 years ago, when I gave up the long distance running stuff).  So, working out only 16 days out of 60 was pathetic for me.  And then, I went 6 full weeks with no training at all.  That was the longest period I've gone without exercising in 30 years.

During that time, I had a few surgeries, including a vasectomy, hernia repair, ACL repair, and a prostatectomy.  None of those surgeries kept me out for six weeks.  I didn't run for 11 weeks after the ACL repair, but I was walking, swimming and cycling after just a few weeks.  After the prostatectomy, I was back in the gym within 3 weeks.

Last Saturday, I walked 2 miles with one of my dogs.  Years ago, I wouldn't have even considered a short walk to be exercise, but as I've gotten older, I've gotten less didactic about what I consider to be exercise.  Monday, I walked at lunch and then rowed 5000 meters in almost 28 minutes.  Earlier this year, that workout would have taken me just over 21 minutes.  Tuesday, I walked again.

Wednesday, my daughter played her last home game of high school soccer.  The parents were all requested to escort their daughters onto the field, and my wife and I stayed to watch the team win 2-1 over Lamoille high school, a team my daughter and her friends intensely dislike.  That was way more important than any workout I might have done.

Yesterday, I rowed 5K in just under 27 minutes.

Tonight, I'll hop on a spin bike and do a solo spinning workout, probably for 30-40 minutes.  These aren't hard workouts, by my pre-illness standards, but I'm starting to move again.

I am hoping to resume CrossFit workouts, scaled to an easy level, on the first of November.  Our gym allows us to suspend our membership (and not pay fees) due to illness or injury, so I suspended my membership starting in September.  In some ways, I should have suspended it 2 months earlier, but I had no idea how the anemia was all going to play out.

Ski season is approaching fast, and I need to get my legs ready for that.  My preferred training for skiing is heavy squats, but it will probably be a while before I'm under a barbell holding 200 or even 300 pounds again.