Home sweet home

Looking at the Sierras of Balcarce from my kitchen window

La Barrosa, which has some fantastic bouldering, as seen from my backyard

Two weeks and two days after surgery, I got back home to Balcarce, Argentina. The following Monday, two weeks and six days after surgery, I drove the 130 mile round trip to the national university (UNICEN) where I work as a math professor. I had no real problems working the clutch with my recently operated left leg. So there's one problem with having Koen De Smet as your hip surgeon: no excuse for staying home from work. However, up to this point I've only been doing the trip to the university three days a week. Fortunately I have some freedom to keep up with my nonclassroom work at home.

For rehabilitation and exercise, I've mostly just been walking, using a pair of trekking poles. I also did some leg exercises, light stretching and stationary bike. By the fourth week I was hiking three to four miles a pop (with the trekking poles) and occasionally doing half an hour on the stationary bike. I tried to do some pull ups and light weights to condition my arms for climbing, but I got bored with that and quickly lost interest.

Last Saturday (a week ago today), exactly five weeks and four days after my revision surgery, I started training in my home bouldering gym. Here's what that looks like from the outside:

My daughter Cecilia in front of my climbing gym. The bouldering wall is visible inside 

Even though I have crash pads two layers deep on the floor below my wall, I'm still nervous about causing any impact on my newly repaired hip. The first day on the wall, I just planned on doing a few traverses, but after warming up I felt confident enough to do a couple of moderate boulders that climb to the top of the wall. I felt I wasn't risking a fall, and I carefully downclimbed to get back to ground level. I even put an extra crash pad (three layers deep!) underneath the downclimb zone.

Traversing the wall

Feeling confident on a big move near the top

Heading up the wall. The red pad is an extra, third layer  to avoid impact on the dismount

I tired out pretty fast during these first sessions. Besides being out of shape from the catastrophe of my first  hip surgery, I'm also about fifteen pounds over my peak climbing weight. However, with all the walking I've been doing recently, I've managed to come down about six pounds since my revision surgery. Hopefully this trend continues.

During the first bouldering session, last Saturday, I only managed to complete three moderate traversing boulders and a couple of going up boulders. For the second session, on Monday, I added a couple of slightly harder going up problems to the repertoire. In the third session, on Wednesday I began to loose my fear of "falling" (more like stepping down) on attempted harder moves near the ground, and continued to add a little more climbing to the pre-existing routine. Yesterday (Friday) I went on my longest hike to date (about five miles, with the trekking poles). This hike will be the subject of tomorrow's post. Right now I'm set to start my fourth bouldering session in the gym, as soon as I finish cleaning up the kitchen. Hopefully, in about two more weeks I will begin to climb outside, for real. Wish me luck!