Spectating, specialists, surgeons and swimming struggles

With my training requiring several adjustments over the past six weeks one would think I would've had plenty of time up my sleeve but that couldn't be further from the truth.

After tearing my hip flexor at Noosa I have been restricted to physio visits, riding and swimming; all be it with a pull buoy firmly fixed between my legs.  And while Revive have been doing all they can to speed up the recovery process, once I got my head around the injury and what sort of recovery time I was looking at I took the opportunity to really up my swimming and in particular, my strength in the water being limited to pull buoy.  After about four weeks this was really starting to pay dividends and I was swimming close to PB times and was doing so with very restricted leg action. 

Unfortunately breaking my finger came at a pretty inconvenient (if there is ever a convenient time!) time because over the past couple of weeks my hip has been healing really well and I've been able to get a few very small runs done and while I am still having some discomfort it is certainly on the improve and hopefully a few weeks of drills, light running and rehab I can be back into some decent volume and regaining my running fitness.  I was actually back on the bike the day after the accident (all be it on a windtrainer to make sure I could get a confident grip on my brakes) and have been almost every day since.  I have also been back swimming with paddles just for a bit of extra protection but as yet still can't really swim at any significant pace am trying to keep the feeling of the water there so I don't completely loose my fitness.  Combining this with some strength sets on the stretch cords while the rest of the squad do their main sets was working out well for me and while my arms were definitely screaming out for a rest I was confident I was doing something that was working. 

 

With my racing plans put on hold I have taken the opportunity to get out there the past couple of weeks and enjoy the spectating side of the sport and let me tell you it is a very different view-point turning up to a race with nothing to do other than watch!  My first experience was the Bribie Triathlon two weeks ago where the tables were turned from the norm and I was the one watching while Dan was out there racing instead of coaching.  And this weekend just gone I was again kept busy spending my Saturday at the Gold Coast watching the junior elites from our squad doing their thing at the ITU Sprint Weekend.  And what a job they did with the girls finishing the weekend with Jodie Duff in first, Britt Dutton in second, Holly Grice in third, Anna Coldham in fourth, Sophie Malowiecki in sixth, Jenna Fulton in ninth, Laura Dennis in eleventh, Angus Gibson in fifteenth, Wyatt Westmoreland in forty-second and Harry Sweeny in second in the youth male division.  Unfortunately I didn't get to their final on the Sunday because I was down at Raby Bay watching the race there with Emily Bevan finishing second, Maddi Allen in fifth and Sarah Deuble in sixth in the open womens race and Lawrence Garufi winning his age group and Dave Kelly still snaring himself a podium after a lap counting incident.  And let me tell you without even doing a race I was exhausted after that weekend!

My recovery from my crash is still a little bit unknown and that's even after spending another four hours in hospital yesterday seeing every orthopaedic surgeon the Royal Brisbane Hospital has to offer.  What I did find out is that I actually still had a dislocation in my finger that wasn't noticed when I first went to hospital and instead of the initial two fractures I have three.  After going through the same amount of pain I did the first time, the second dislocation is now fixed but because of the locations of the fractures and time since the accident the next step is a little bit of an unknown.  By the sounds of things they are leaning towards surgery which I was initially trying to avoid but they want to seek the advice of their hand specialists and until I hear from them later in the week I am playing the sitting and waiting game, which also involves limiting my hand movements until then but won't stop the running or riding.  Who knew a little finger could cause so much difficulty!

 

 

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Re-evaluating race plans...again

Four weeks post Noosa and I was still yet to successfully run any significant distance or any distance at all!  The impact of my fall and then proceeding to run the 10km off the bike resulted in what the physios at Revive have now diagnosed and are treating as a hip flexor tear.  I must say these guys have been phenomenal in their approach to treating not only my injury but every patient that enters their clinic.  It's not always easy for me to get in and see the same physio each time I go but their communication and knowledge of everyone that walks through the door makes it easy to stay on top of my injury.  And to have the physios ringing me to see if there is anything they can do to help me get back to running any sooner gives me so much confidence in what they are doing!

As is probably common knowledge to most people muscle tears take some time to heal.  And after dealing with fact that I wasn't going to be able to run for some time I was forced to pull out of Shepparton 70.3 but had got my head around that and even entered my next big race which was to be Auckland 70.3 in late January.  However after just over 4 weeks post-Noosa had passed and just over 7 weeks pre-Auckland and I was still yet to run, I was seriously doubting my ability to be half-marathon race ready in time for Auckland.  As disappointing as it was in the back of my mind I had pulled the pin on Auckland and had again re-evaluated my race schedule and had penciled in the National Long Course Championships in Geelong as my next race.

This decision has now been confirmed after the events that occurred out training mid last week.  While my swimming training and cycling training had been progressing really well and I was starting to see PB's across the board, my luck on the bike (or bad luck) has continued.  Myself, Angus, Sarah and Courtney had started the morning at the ungodly time of 5:00am and were just 10km into our ride when we were all brought down in a crash.  I won't go into all of the details but what I can say is that we are all very lucky and fortunate that the injuries are somewhat minor in comparison to what could have occurred.  Thankfully there was minimal traffic around to make the situation any worse and the cars that saw the incident stopped to not only call the ambulance but remained at the scene to keep us all calm and also drove Angus and all of our bikes back to Dan's house while Courtney and myself were taken to hospital with Sarah to look after us.  Five hours later I was allowed to leave the hospital with a fair few bruises and grazes and a finger that had spent a long time facing a direction it really shouldn't, while Courtney was kept overnight under observation after suffering some deep cuts to her neck after coming in contact with a stray chainring but has since been released to rest in the comfort of her own home.

I think it goes without saying how grateful all four of us are to everyone involved in taking care of us from the passers by who stopped to see if we were alright and to help where they could and to all of the paramedic and hospital staff and most importantly all of our friends and family. 

I think we all know how dangerous this sport is, in particular the cycling component so without going on too long about it here is a link to a blog Dan put up earlier today which is definitely worth a read!

http://danat08.webnode.com/

This has confirmed I won't be racing Auckland 70.3 and really throws any racing plans out the window until I can swim, ride and run and get the required training done without compromising my health.  Being a bit optimistic I've set myself my next goal of being able to swim, ride and run at some capacity to be able to complete all the training at our upcoming training camp in 3 weeks time but for now I've already testing out riding and can get a good enough grip on the bars that I'll be continuing that straight away.   My hip is coming along nicely and while the runs back have been short (and when I say short I mean real short, having just returned from a solid 2km!), they are finding their way back into my program.  And my mind is in overdrive coming up with some kind of minimalistic hand paddle that will allow me to swim pain free so I'm not missing much while my finger heals.
 

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