My heart rate’s over 100 - now what do I do?

Rehabbing from my hip upgrade has been a bit of a bitch (duh - I know). I did really well at home, but not well enough to walk on my own. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I'm expecting to hop up and be back to my old active self after sitting around for two months.

Enter the University of Utah Physical Terrorist (I mean, Therapist) Unit. Really friendly people - really good therapists - really tough for wussies like me.

My guy is charged first with getting me stronger and then we will progress to "gait training" which is just another fancy way of teaching this thirty-something chick that regular people walk without dragging one of their legs behind them like Egore. Which is great. I'm happy for the opportunity. But I like being able to squat down to pee without yelping from pain in my quadriceps, which has been a regular occurrence during the past week.

I'm getting used to the pain part, and feeling like I'm a bit better in control of my strength training situation...but yesterday my guy pointed out I'm making a lot of progress (YAY!) and asked me if I'd like to try some cardio.

Inside, I'm doing cartwheels... "Yes," I said, and we trotted off to the stationary bike to see what I could do (stationary bikes are on the 'approved list' because my previous therapist told me my balance was no where near safe for clip in pedals at this time - and I agree this is a correct analysis).

So I climb on this bike and my guy is explaining to me that I can play with the tension to see what's comfortable for me. He's fiddling with the controls while chatting with me and level "2" was killing my legs and lungs, but I try not to show it.

Then we joked about me not falling off the bike because it'd been so long since I'd had a real workout, but in the back of my mind I had a very clear image of what head down, legs up would look like if I happened to tumble from the equipment I was sitting on.

I'm telling you - 5 minutes on this bike and I felt like I was Sweatin' to the Oldies or hanging out in one of my days of old spin classes. Did I stop? No way. My ego wouldn't let me get off that bike before the guy twice my age next to me did. So I kept going...huffing, puffing and feeling my face and chest turning various shades of red, but I found myself sticking with it and ended up riding 15 minutes, only after I turned the resistance down to "1".

I nodded to my guy on the way out and muttered "Yeah, it felt really good to do some cardio today," and tried to keep the optimistic smiley face on my head.

I wasn't lying, it did feel good to ride the bike - slowly - with little resistance. It was the walk to the car afterwards that damn near killed me. I found myself spending more time than I wanted sitting in my vehicle trying to figure out how to keep my legs from quivering enough to where I could drive myself home.

Later, when I tried to pee, I let out a bit of a whimper as my muscles again reminded me they are in disagreement with the new training regimen as opposed to sitting on my ass seeing how fast I can flip channels on the TV.