So let's see if we can keep the negative posts rolling for a little while longer.
Last Friday night I was riding my bike down near Ashby BART around 11 pm when I took my hand off the handlebar for enough time to hit a pothole and ruin my day (and back wheel).
I still have a reasonably clear memory of immediately after my front wheel contacted the pothole. The wheel lifted off the pavement and rotated to an angle not conducive to going in a straight line, I had time to think something along the lines of "guess I'm fucked", then just waited for it to be over. I wound up on my back resting my head on the pavement, going through the internal checks to see how serious it was. I felt pressure in my head, but maybe that's just the adrenaline. OK, I can move my arms....legs too. I checked my head below the helmet line for blood and tender spots. Nothing, just a really mild headache. Maybe the helmet hit the ground and I'm just feeling that. I laid there for a little longer making sure I could remember peoples' names and then decided to risk it, took off my helmet, and stood up to walk over to the sidewalk.
I actually came out of the accident relatively unharmed considering how violent the crash seemed. Even some bad scrapes on my left knee, right hip, and both palms are well on their way to being healed less than 4 days after. I'm not even sure I hit my head. My neck muscles on the left side were really sore two days afterward so maybe I somehow managed to keep my head off the ground. It certainly feels like the bulk of the impact was on my right hip. There weren't any clear marks on the helmet, so the persistent headache was probably psychological and sleep deprivation from that night.
It could have been a lot more unpleasant. I was fortunate to be biking with a friend, Joe, who watched over me as I collected myself. Lindsay and Christina came back in a car to come get me and Lindsay took me to the emergency room to get checked out, waiting with me in the worst emergency room ever for 5 hours until 4 in the morning. David was there to talk to me on the phone and assuage my worries of a slowly developing head injury.
So now my left knee is slightly bruised and it hurts to run and I have to delay my comeback for another week. Mostly I just wanted to get the crash out of my system and thank all my friends who were there to help.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Paid Information
So after spending $200 to find out that I don't have a stress reaction on Monday, I just spent $65 this morning to find out in 30 minutes that I most likely do not have an overuse injury, sports hernia, or hip flexor problem. Apparently I have an unstable pelvis, which is a problem due to having very tight everythings. I'm not sure if I agree with this diagnosis; it's true I have not stretched in two months, but that happened after the injury.
The physical therapist's plan for me is to do core work and stretching until hopefully I am healed, which could be a couple months. While this is not really that helpful, it's better than not being able to do anything. I can even do some aquajogging and a couple miles of running, if it doesn't hurt (which it does). I am going to try to take Lindsay's advice and make sure to do all the exercises as seriously and focused as possible, so I can forget about how I think that this is the wrong diagnosis. The good thing is that even if this doesn't work, when I start running again, whenever that is, I'll be really flexible and have a strong core, which will be really helpful.
I'll give a more positive post in a few weeks when I start seeing results.
The moral is: do your stretching and corework and it will save you money.
The physical therapist's plan for me is to do core work and stretching until hopefully I am healed, which could be a couple months. While this is not really that helpful, it's better than not being able to do anything. I can even do some aquajogging and a couple miles of running, if it doesn't hurt (which it does). I am going to try to take Lindsay's advice and make sure to do all the exercises as seriously and focused as possible, so I can forget about how I think that this is the wrong diagnosis. The good thing is that even if this doesn't work, when I start running again, whenever that is, I'll be really flexible and have a strong core, which will be really helpful.
I'll give a more positive post in a few weeks when I start seeing results.
The moral is: do your stretching and corework and it will save you money.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Listen to Your Body?
Today was a beautiful day in San Francisco. I walked to the ferry building, and did a few 50 meter spurts of running on the way there. They were some of the sweetest, most glorious moments of running I have ever experienced—and definitely the highlight of my day, the rest of which I spent moping, and poking at my leg so much that I gave myself a bruise over the stress fracture site. With injury, some days are better than others, and today was a hard one.
When I got back, I read an article by Gina Kolata, the science journalist for the New York Times who really gets runners. She wrote about the old dictum to "listen to your body"—and how maybe it's a load of crap:
It's a hard lesson to learn, but I think probably a true one. There's so much anecdotal advice floating around the running community about how to avoid injuries, a lot of it coming from incredibly talented, accomplished, and seasoned runners. But it doesn't seem like any of us is capable of taking our own advice—elites get injured plenty.
Being injured makes me think about running even more than I do when I'm not injured, and over the past six weeks (my longest break ever), I've been thinking a lot about what I could have done differently to avoid such a long layoff. I could have taken more time off at the first sign of injury. I could have walked at the end of that one run where my leg was really bugging me. I could have cross-trained less vigorously during my time off.
But I did none of these things. Why? Because the thing that makes us good runners—that slightly obsessive drive that separates us from the non-running population—is the same thing that makes us so injury prone. We don't know how to stop.
Strangely, there's something comforting about those words as I write them. An injured runner is in a state of existential torment. Ok, that might be a little hyperbolic, but running is a huge part of our identities, and when we haven't run in weeks, we start to question who we are—or at least I do.
But if the quality that plants me so firmly in the running community is the same one that sidelines me, then I can rest assured that even when injured, my runner-identity is intact. A small measure of relief, but I'll take what I can get, and if that means 20-second spurts of running for now, so be it.
When I got back, I read an article by Gina Kolata, the science journalist for the New York Times who really gets runners. She wrote about the old dictum to "listen to your body"—and how maybe it's a load of crap:
“I never listened to my body,” he said. “Maybe I should have. So let’s get that clear right off: I think it’s an impossible task.”
When he was training, Mr. Fleming said, he couldn’t train less or make himself go more slowly. And, he added, if you really listen to your body, you will not achieve what you are capable of.
Athletes need someone else, a coach if possible, he said, to tell them when to rest, when to take an easy day and when to work hard.
It's a hard lesson to learn, but I think probably a true one. There's so much anecdotal advice floating around the running community about how to avoid injuries, a lot of it coming from incredibly talented, accomplished, and seasoned runners. But it doesn't seem like any of us is capable of taking our own advice—elites get injured plenty.
Being injured makes me think about running even more than I do when I'm not injured, and over the past six weeks (my longest break ever), I've been thinking a lot about what I could have done differently to avoid such a long layoff. I could have taken more time off at the first sign of injury. I could have walked at the end of that one run where my leg was really bugging me. I could have cross-trained less vigorously during my time off.
But I did none of these things. Why? Because the thing that makes us good runners—that slightly obsessive drive that separates us from the non-running population—is the same thing that makes us so injury prone. We don't know how to stop.
Strangely, there's something comforting about those words as I write them. An injured runner is in a state of existential torment. Ok, that might be a little hyperbolic, but running is a huge part of our identities, and when we haven't run in weeks, we start to question who we are—or at least I do.
But if the quality that plants me so firmly in the running community is the same one that sidelines me, then I can rest assured that even when injured, my runner-identity is intact. A small measure of relief, but I'll take what I can get, and if that means 20-second spurts of running for now, so be it.
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