Matter on my mind

The time is at hand.

I'm currently riding out my first taper since just before the marathon, all the way back in April. I've actually got some sleep this week, and really have cranked the training down. It didn't seem worth it for Woodstock in May (so soon after being hit by a car) and the weird block of events-every-week in June (sometimes two in a weekend), but this time I really need to be rested.

You see, I'm going back to the site of my very first DNF.

Event website here.

Apparently the bike course has been changed between 5.7-6.8km to make it slightly longer - it adds 1.12km to the 2-loops I'll be doing for the full off-road tri. However, I'm rather more concerned with making it to that point at all. I had only got 3.62km (according to my cycle computer) in on the bike back in 2012 before I experienced a mechanical failure of the most gut-wrenchingly organic kind.

Nope.

Apparently my wrist doesn't take kindly to me getting repeatedly hung up in rock gardens and falling on it directly. Duly noted.

So now, almost two years later, I'm as healed as I'm likely to get and heading out tomorrow morning to have another bash at this. I did actually complete the race successfully in 2011, on my old, rigid steel mountain bike. Apparently my slick carbon fibre squishyness made me a little overconfident in 2012. Or, maybe I could have used more than 10 days to get used to the new bike before trying to ride in in anger. Who knows?

In any case, my mission is clear: actually make it through the race this time.

If I can do so with a bit of speed and skill, all the better. However, the primary goal is just to remain upright. I have actually done a bit of trail riding (though not nearly as much as I had hoped for, what with the whole "recovering from hood ornament syndrome" thing), but I have come out unscathed from 2 out of the 3 trail rides I've put in since May...which is still not that great a track record, but better than nothing. This, of course, includes the ride with Tanker out at GORBA where I managed to ride some sections I'd always walked in the past.

This was not one of them.

To build some last-minute confidence, I actually went out on Monday (which I had off, instead of July 1st) and rode a trail that sustained major damage over the winter. Frost heaved, trees fell, and the Mill Run Trail became messy (see above). The only other time I'd rode it this year was the day I had the rear wheel go out from under me, brutalizing my left knee - I think it was rather understandable that after that, I decided to get off and walk over the tricky bits. However, Monday I took no prisoners!

In my repaired Hub kit, no less!

I rode over all the messed-up bridges, and even did some off-trail farting around in the woods. I had a great time and felt pretty strong on the bike.

So, there's hope that 2012 was just an isolated incident, especially since I'm basically going to just be "tourist-ing" the bike course tomorrow - much as I did with the Tour de King before my cast came off. If something just looks too risky, I'll do some hike-o-bike-o, even if I just end up taking my sexy ride for a walk in the woods. As much as I'm not looking forward to running up the Niagara Escarpment, I am bound and determined to make it to the run this time!

YEAH!

It's just a matter of mind, right?

Belated brokeaversary

It was August 26th, 2012 when I broke myself at the Mine Over Matter Off-Road Triathlon.

I don't recommend it.

Well it's not too bad, is it?

Erhm,..

Assessing the break post-reduction (which means "after they yank on it and let it snap back like an elastic band to set it, fortunately after giving you large amounts of rave drugs"), my orthopedic surgeon was of the opinion that it was a "borderline case" for surgery. When I elected to see how it would heal without surgical intervention he was a bit dubious, but agreed to give it a go. While I did end up with some shortening of the radius (the bone I broke - the one closer to your thumb) due to the tension in my forearm muscles, the prognosis was that I'd end up with "a pretty good wrist".

I didn't go easy on myself during recovery. While I was basically helpless for the first few days (thank gawd Tanker had a week of holidays, so could drive me to work and back as well as waiting on me hand & foot), I immediately returned to my idiot ways, even to the point of going minigolfing while still in the splint - it was 2 days after the break, and an idea born out of a haze of codeine.

I'm not sure I could have counted my legs at this point.

I even went to a motorcycle rally (the same one for which we leave this evening - whee!) just 5 days after the fracture, enjoying riding on the back seat of other people's bikes and coming home with the best rally souvenir of all time:

This still hangs on the wall in my livingroom!

I returned to running 11 days post-break, as soon as I got a waterproof cast, then got back in the pool and on the trainer - I'm not good with the idea of "can't". Three weeks after the fateful DNF at Mine Over Matter, I was back on the starting line of a triathlon, enjoying the hell out of myself at the Lakeside Olympic.

The ill advised racing kit has never been so apropos.

Then there was a 50k mountain bike race 5 weeks post-break, just days before my final cast came off. I may have walked a lot of the really sketchy, technical stuff, but damnit I rode trail!

One of my favourite race photos of ever.

Through it all, I worked hard with therapy putty, testing my limits and trying to improve each day. I had a lot of pain and depressingly little strength in the wrist when the cast was finally removed; there was a lot of atrophy and stiffness, making me wonder if I'd ever be able to have a normal life again.

I think I've seen this somewhere before..

Yep, that's it.

It took months before I was able to return to normal push-ups, working with a barbell, and even simply go more than a day pain-free. I've been persistent, though, and as time passes I find myself doing something unthinkingly (like pulling a water bottle out of a bike cage with my left hand) and marveling that "hey, I couldn't do that without pain (or at all) just a couple of months ago".

This season I've raced another off-road race on my mountain bike, a tough spring classic, a half iron distance tri, and numerous other events. I've done a 9-day / 3,000km motorcycle tour, and will be leaving in a couple of weeks to go backpacking in Algonquin Park. My amazing new mountain bike - which I had for a week and a half before breaking myself, damaging it in the process - has been repaired and is now just as much fun to ride on the trails as he ever was.

His cast will never come off, though.

While not everything is perfect and I still have some aching and soreness from time to time (it's actually a pretty good warning sign that I'm starting to over-train), Dr. Bischoff was right - I do have a pretty good wrist, and a lot for which to be thankful. It wasn't until after the cast had come off that he really let me in on how serious the fracture had been, and he was constantly amazed by the progress I made - I'll never forget the look on his face when I told him I was miffed at having to use grips to do push-ups 10 weeks after the initial crash, since I didn't have the range of motion back to put my hand flat on the floor! I've since regained that, though it's not quite as good as the flexibility I have in my other wrist. I'll never be quite the same again as I was before, but my new normal really just serves to highlight how far I've come in the last year, and not to take what I can do for granted.

Sometimes "good enough" really is.

A year already?

Yes folks, it's now been a year since that first ill advised blog post. At almost 9,000 views, I'm nearly certain there are at least a couple of people reading who aren't my mother or my husband - hopefully they found what they were looking for, except for that one who apparently landed here by using "butt plug Gravenhurst" as their search terms.

A whole year of bad crayon art!

The 2013 season is shaping up to be a good one: I've already registered for a number of races including the inaugural 65km Steaming Nostril off-road cycling race on March 24th and the 20th anniversary Paris to Ancaster off-road mudfest with new-and-improved 70km route on April 14th, both of which will be accompanied by Tanker. After all that cycling I'll be attempting to run again at the 10th anniversary edition of the Mississauga Half Marathon on May 5th, then Tanker and I will saddle up again for the 100km route at the Cambridge Tour de Grand on June 9th. The "A" race for the year will be the Welland Half Iron triathlon on June 23rd, which will hopefully happen without a massive SI joint injury this time. As the cherry on top, Belwood has returned as part of the MultiSport Canada Triathlon Series after having been dropped by that other series last year. Tanker and I are already registered as the ill advised racing relay team for the 750m-30k-7.5k sprint on July 20th. There will be a couple of other races sprinkled in there as well, but I'm already pretty stoked! The winter insulation (courtesy of my Christmas baking) is coming off a little faster than last year, I managed not to spend most of January injured and grumpy due to lack of running, and I'm generally feeling pretty optimistic.

Moving forward, I'll try to continue with the gear reviews and other potentially edifying stuff...but realistically you can expect a lot more self-serving race reports, mundane tri-babble (AERO TRANSITION CADENCE BRICK SPANDEX RAWRR!), bad humour and even worse drawings.

It's what I do.

Thanks for reading - hope you at least had some laughs!

Wrap it up, 2012.

Since I foolishly did not take (even very bad) photos of any gear this week, you're getting a different kind of review - the ubiquitous, self-centred look back at my year. Just grit your teeth and hang on; I'll try to make it quick.

Snowy trail, but I'm in shorts on January 7th!

January: Groin injury sustained during a particularly nasty run in the snow. Thought it could be anything from a torn hip labrum through a femoral neck stress fracture. Still don't know what it was, exactly (never saw a doc), but took 10 days off from running and commenced regular lateral hip strengthening exercises. Whined a lot.

Dorking it up at the indoor tri in February.

February: Slashed my toe open in the pool a couple of days before the Runner's Den Indoor Sprint Tri. Raced, had fun, and really surprised myself with the pace I was able to maintain on a 5k course that's basically one giant hill, run down and then up twice. Also started the blog, much to your chagrin.

Just me and my buddies at Around the Bay in March.

March: Managed to keep from re-injuring myself during a tightly compressed mileage build for the Around the Bay 30k, at which I like to think I acquitted myself admirably considering I'd been ready to sell my bib just a month or so beforehand (see: January).

Muddy at the finish line in Ancaster in April.

April: Went every so slightly faster at the Paris to Ancaster 60k than the year before. Have convinced myself that the improvement of only 5mins is due to the course being tougher this year than last (with the substitution of a muddy country lane for a stretch of dirt road). No excuse has been found for finishing near the back of the pack, though.

Heading out of T1 at Woodstock in May.

May: A spectacular 10k PR at the Mudpuppy Chase and the triathlon season kickoff in Woodstock! I probably had more fun in May than any other single month this year.

Racing for my Dad at Welland in June.

June: This is the month that nearly did me in. Our bedroom ceiling collapsed, requiring about $6,000 in roofing work and new bedroom furniture. I barely made it through the 160km Tour de Grand on the hottest day of the year, and to top it all off my Dad passed away suddenly on Father's Day. The only good thing that came out of June was my rather breakthrough performance at the Welland Triathlon, blowing away my prior times on that course.

Finishing a tough day at Gravenhurst in July.

July: As I drew closer to my planned "A" race of the season, training had given way to life's upheavals. The best I could hope for was to get through unscathed, and to enjoy a weekend away. Despite all that and a ridiculously hot, sunny day, I only narrowly missed going sub-3 hours at the Gravenhurst Olympic Tri. I had an amazing weekend with my husband, had an absolute riot volunteering on the swim and run courses for the Sunday races, and only came crashing back to reality when another piece of our stinkin' house broke. Right before we were leaving for vacation. Crap. Some heated phonecalls and $1,100 later the problem was solved.

Broken and unhappy at Mine Over Matter in August.

August: Started with an incredible motorcycle tour through Quebec City, the Laurentian Mountains and Montreal, and ended with me breaking my left wrist at the Mine Over Matter off-road tri and my first DNF ever.

Ill advised indeed at Lakeside in September.

September: Because I'm too dumb to know when to stay down, I raced the Lakeside Olympic tri 3 weeks after breaking my wrist, then the Tour de King 50k mountain bike race 2 weeks after that. In between, we spent most of a week in Alberta (with a side trip to British Columbia) visiting with Tanker's family and seeing beautiful things.

Running happy at Vulture Bait in October.

October: I finally got my cast removed on the 3rd, just in time to set another huge PR at the Vulture Bait 25k trail race. I managed not to fall on my injured wrist there, but wasn't quite so lucky on a miserable day at the Horror Hill 6-hour toward the end of the month. Fortunately there was no real damage done, and I was able to finish out the race despite the mud.

Tanker and I in Blair in November.

November: All races being done for the year, I decided to start reviewing products for my weekly blog posts rather than bore you with too many details of training and me, me, me. I relaxed a little and ate too much, but I don't really take time off from training - I just make it more about fun than improvements, and try to spend more time with friends and family. My wrist continued to improve - my ortho was impressed and said he wouldn't need to see me again - and I was able to ride my mountain bike comfortably, so Tanker and I explored some new trails together.

Trying not to blind myself in December.

December: In what will hopefully prove to be my last bit of bad luck for the year, I was struck in the left goggle by a gentleman's head in the pool while lane swimming - the resulting cut and bruising was enough to keep me from training at all for two days and out of the pool for a week. On the bright side, the weather cooperated for some silliness: 

T'was 8 days before Christmas, 

when I went for a ride; 

but not on the trainer, 

no I went outside!

It was mild and damp 

as I climbed on my bike, 

but at 4 degrees above zero, 

hey, what's not to like? 

Not a cyclist was spotted, 

except for myself - 

all dressed up in red, 

like some giant elf! 

I pedaled along happily, 

enjoying the lights, 

and wish all my fellow riders 

Merry Christmas and goodnight!

So there you have it. While I'm very pleased with some of my performances this year, the setbacks and tragedies that have interspersed the bright moments have been nasty enough that I'm looking forward to starting afresh in 2013. My race schedule is already filling up, and I'm still hoping to hear some good news from my sponsors for the season to come. In the meantime, I wish you all the best for a happy, productive and prosperous new year!