Week 3: Progress and Setbacks

It's a long weekend here in Aotearoa (some monarch having a birthday or something) and the dance card was looking pretty packed. However, it's never plain sailing in Bruja's World and I'm feeling a kind of horrible nerviness. 

Yesterday I bowed to the twin gods of running and rampant commercialism and got myself fitted for a new pair of road running shoes. The shoes I believed to be right for my gait were tearing strips off my arches whenever I ran more than a few kilometres, and I felt my stride was different to when it had last been analysed (a diagnosis of horrible overpronation, heelstrike and flat footedness was given) and if I wanted to start packing on the k's a better set of gear was needed. Interestingly, it looks like my gait has indeed changed. I'm still flat-footed but my gait is very neutral, I no longer overpronate and that's really good news for running distance and not injuring my knees. Historically I've had real issues with my kneecaps dislocating, causing intense pain and lots of dire warnings from doctors, including the memorable response to the question "How do I stop this happening when I exercise?" "Stop exercising". Cue years of feeling like I couldn't and shouldn't and rampant obesity and a total lack of faith in my body. Nice.

My running shoe family. Top left, the overpronate-correcting sole shredders.
Bottom right, the most expensive shoes I have ever bought.
I never in my life thought I'd have a trainer collection.

New shoes in my possession, I decided that rest day and hot weather be damned. I was going for a run. The afternoon had that really nice, loose feel to it that made me think running 10k was a possibility. The longest I'd run since I started training was 5k (when I'd finished my intervals on the treadmill and decided to push on for the 5. Personal best yo) and as a wise man once said "If you can run 5 comfortably, you can run 10. Just run a bit slower" (thanks dad!). I planned a route out, one I'd never done before that took me to the waterfront then up a murderous hill but that came in just shy of the ten, and off I went. 

It was great. My fancy GPS timing watch ran out of power about 3k in, so I sailed on without the carrot and stick that is the time. Having just got used to having a timer, it was strange going without. At one point I took a wrong turn which led to a dead end at the bottom of a ferocious incline but I was enjoying myself so much at that point I didn't care going all the way back up, it meant I was running for longer. 

I pushed myself all the way up the hill (West End Road for you locals), and the final few k along a Saturday afternoon shopping street felt almost surreal. I was running in a little bubble of isolation, dodging past sleek-looking middle-aged women and pudgy kids. At one point, a small child ran alongside me for about three shop lengths, racing me to a bakery where a little dog was tied up. She pointed out as we ran that my cap was the same colour as her shoes. It was all I could do to grin and gesture, saving my energy for a final mad sprint down the hill towards my house. 

On wobbly legs I wandered around the block to cool down, gulping back water and feeling a weird mixture of exhaustion and freshness. The marathon has never felt more close, more achievable than it did at that moment. From checking the time when I got in the house with when I started my watch, it turned out I did the lot in 1 hour 18 minutes, hardly an Olympic qualifying time but still better than I'd thought. 

Route went past this. Then went up. A lot.

I had enough time to inhale a couple of sandwiches and wash the salt off my face before it was in the car to go to team training. We were learning a couple of new tricks and tips and I was feeling pretty good physically until during a scrum start one of the skaters went down and landed hard on my left leg. It's almost 100% but still doesn't like being over-extended and this overextended it a LOT. I also twisted at the trapped knee from being taken down. The pain was intense. Hell, for a few seconds I felt like I'd broken it again. The pain shot up from ankle to knee but after the initial impact it mercifully lacked the gut-wrenching pain of a break. I got some ice, took my skate off, and limped off the track. Just a little bang-up, I told myself. Really, no biggie. It'd be fine. I cancelled a dive trip today and turned down the offer of a cycle ride just to make sure.

It's over 24 hours since the "little bang-up" and I am not feeling fine. My knee won't bend without a sharp pain and my ankle doesn't like having my full weight on it. I went for coffee with someone and did little other than be annoyed about it (sorry dude). I want to go to a night out tonight but if I'm honest I'm in pain and cranky and PISSED OFF and probably not the kind of company wanted at a party. I was planning on going for a trail run tomorrow before this weekend's XTERRA 12k race but I'm not sure if that'll happen now. I'm actually getting a little teary writing this at the idea of not being able to make my training commitments this week while it heals. I'm even googling for a physio open on a bank holiday so I can get it looked at tomorrow. 

I'm trying to be rational about it, I'm hoping it's nothing but the pain is pretty bad. If I'm out for a week or so I'm going to be bloody furious. I'm really hitting my stride (literally and figuratively) and to be laid up now would be positively cruel. 

So here's the thing. Running isn't hurting me, skating is. This is the second training in two weeks where I've left the track prematurely with an icepack and a grimace (a big hit at scrimmage the other week gave me whiplash-like neck pains for about a week. Total game time: 5 minutes) I had entertained the notion that the derby fates were done with me and I would stop getting hurt. It looks like I was wrong. 

I don't get it. I'm certainly fitter than the average skater. I run four times a week. I take my offskates seriously. I eat well. I listen to the "We're all really unfit and that's why we get injured" rhetoric and think hell, that's not me. So what is it? Because I have a feeling there's a decision coming that I'm going to have to make, and if I do then the shoes will beat the skates. I am going to run this bloody marathon, and if derby won't share me with it then the sport will have to go. 

Oh for pity's sake, what now?

Sunday I blogged about my numerous successes with derby and running, and Sunday evening I went to training on the bike. So far so normal, until I was blocked out whilst jamming during a drill. The blocker got me off the track, then went down. Her leg kicked out and swept me off my feet, and unfortunately my head took the hit. Hard. The crack as helmet hit floor at speed echoed round the rink and felt like the kickdrum from hell had been beaten inside my skull.

Everything went blurry. For a while.I lay there, doing that bizarre hissing breathing that seems to be the noise I make when in pain (happens enough these days that I know this), trying to get my eyes to point the right way and hoping to all things that I hadn't cracked my skull the way it felt I had.

The pain eventually settled down to a background pain with help of an ice pack and some aroha from the other downed skaters around the rink. I felt well enough to ride home, and well enough to ride to work.

Then it all went sideways.

I couldn't focus, the lights hurt my eyes. My contact lenses dug like nails into my corneas. I was slurring, and my train of thought was not so much a train as a broken boxcar. I went to the nurse's office and was swiftly dispatched to the nearest accident and medical, and then by ambulance to the hospital. I was kept in for observation for six hours, which I spent mostly sleeping, having blood taken for some reason, telling the same story to about ten different doctors, nurses, students and (probably) the bedside table. I was diagnosed with delayed concussion, a result of the fall and probably the car accident, and whiplash. They were concerned that I might have cracked a vertebrae in my neck at one point, but thankfully ruled it out before we got to the X-ray and hard brace stage.

I'm still bloody sore (painkillers, and a soft brace to wear when the pain gets REALLY sore to take the weight off for short periods) and today at work was spent in a bit of a daze. No derby for three weeks as another head injury could be very bad, and as yet I don't know how long I have to wait until I can get back running again. Hopefully SOON (no exercise is making me twitchy. At least, I hope it's no exercise that's causing that)

What's causing me to kick the furniture (gently) is the disappointment of yet another setback. I take up running, I get on travel team, and now I'm laid up with yet another injury. It's like trying to save money and every time a gain is made, a bill or an unexpected expense comes along and the savings get a little bit smaller. I'm in the best shape of my life, but I'd be in better shape if I wasn't so injury-prone. Since my shoulder/groin double-whammy I'd been to a whole TWO trainings before Sunday's slamfest, and I can't help but feel a little frustrated.

However, it could be a lot worse and I know that. It's only three weeks of no derby, I should be back running in a few days (hopefully), I'm not in a cast or on fire or flat broke, but still. It'd be brilliant if I could get a slight lead and maintain if for longer than half an hour...

In sickness and in health: REALLY loving your body.

I have a sprained rotator cuff and a strained groin. I don't know exactly when I got these injuries, or the circumstances that caused then to happen, but there they are. The shoulder has, I think, been coming for some time. It's been clicky and grindy and sore for months (years?) from a combo of falls, blocks and sleeping with it bend forward far enough that it looks almost dislocated, but I tend to complain a bit, ignore it and then carry on. It's not actually much worse than it usually is, but I got a physio to look at it and she said it needs proper rest, not slapping on some Voltaren and getting by. The groin strain is a week off skates on its own, and might mean that I miss out on competing in the Tough Gal Challenge next weekend.

It's tough. Most of the time I don't look or feel very injured, but then I get on skates or do certain exercises and my body makes no apologies for a virtual slap around the chops and a reminder that IT IS A BIT BROKEN, YO. It's travel team selection right now (still) and I'll miss at least three training sessions for it, possibly more. A choice has to made: rest and heal properly, or chance it, practice and possibly end up worse off in future?

This got me thinking a bit about the physical demands we place on ourselves as skaters. I've blogged about the emotional, mental and social demands, but on the body?

This machine kills jammers

I'm fairly new to this concept of the body as a tool. In the past it's been something to be embarrassed about, hide from public view, or obsess over its aesthetics. Since I started regularly going to a gym, I started to see the value in what it can do. Derby really shifted the gear until now I don't frantically flick through photos of bouts to see if there's a shot of me breathing out or "looking fat". Now I look through them to see if that amazing hit I got on that jammer looks as good on camera, or if that amazing spill I took got documented. The tummy/backside/thighs/chins are part of the picture, but no longer the focus. This may not sound like much to you, but as someone who's spent years trying various ways to hide the bits she hated about her body in photos for years, this attitude shift is a HUGE deal.

So far, so body positive, so Oprah. As has been blogged here and elsewhere, the virtues of having a big ass (see left) when blocking and the usefulness of all body shapes and sizes in derby is one of the best things about it in terms of being a positive sport for women. Yay us.


But there's the flip side of using the body as a tool, and it's not just a derby thing. It occurred to me when I was sitting in the physio's office yesterday being told no skating for a week. I sat there thinking "F*ck that noise! Selection! Training! I'll get unfit! I've just been sick, I've no time to recover!" and so on and so on. I was thinking of ways to ignore it (like I have before), to get round it, and to keep skating, going to the gym, and do the Tough Gal Challenge.

Then I had a wee think.

I respect my body. I love what it can do, how it blocks, how fast I can make it go. I love that I feel confident and fit and healthy. But with that respect needs to come an understanding that this machine I operate sometimes needs to go in for maintenance. I need to accept that, with the great demands I place on it to skate, block, and grow stronger, comes the acceptance that sometimes repairs need to happen. I see so many skaters nursing injuries that have been niggling away at them for months, sometimes even years. Skaters who might never skate again because the drive to skate and play was greater than the need to rest and recover, and the little injury never did heal.

So, I'm going to respect my body and what it can do. I'm going to respect its amazing ability to heal damage and let it do it's thing. If that means I miss out on selection this year, fine. I'll be fitter, stronger, leaner for next year's selection, and will do my damnedest to improve the weak parts of my body so that the injuries are less of an issue next year.

To the gym!