|
Racing in Oslo last season - my last weekend of racing for that winter. |
Finally as promised, the long awaited details about my back
injury. In July 2011, while
completing a max strength session in the gym I herniated a disk in my low back,
between the L5 and S1 vertebrate to be exact. The previous day we had done a hard interval session of
double poling which had my back feeling a little tight and fatigued the morning
of the incident, but at the time I didn’t think much of it. The weight lifting session had been
going well and I was midway through finishing my squats for the day. During one of my reps while squatting
up from the low point of the lift, my back shifted slightly and I suddenly felt
a sharp pain shoot through my low back.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that I might have just
seriously injured myself. Yeah it
hurt a lot but I thought it was just one of those injuries that would quickly
disappear. I took some anti-inflammatory
drugs when I got home, iced my low back, and thought I would wake up the next
day more or less ready to go again.
I woke up the next morning thinking that I would be OK, but
instead I woke up barely able to walk and in a ton of pain. I hobbled into physio later in the
afternoon and the long road to recovery officially began. I received a CT scan
a few days later and an MRI a few days after that which both confirmed what was
feared; a left sided herniation, slightly compressing the S1nerve root. I backed off the training and started
on an intense rehab plan. The
initial recovery actually went really well and I progressed faster then what
our support staff would typically see.
It wasn’t long before I was back to training on a modified plan and come
fall I had made up any lost training and intensity hours. Things weren’t perfect, there were a
lot of activities I had to refrain from doing, but I was able to accomplish the
training I needed to get done with some changes to the program.
When I transitioned from roller skiing to skiing on snow in
October, things started to act up a bit with my back but it seemed I was always
able to keep it from getting too bad through physio. The race season went ahead as planned, but by the end of the
third race at the World Cup opener in Sweden I was running into problems again.
I was in a lot of pain and this time symptoms were progressing to my left leg. By the time we arrived in Austria for
World Cup #2 things were to the point where I was having trouble walking. I was planning to pack it in and fly
home, but after a few days of taking it easy things started to settle to the
point where I was able to ski again without too much problem. I survived the next two World Cups of
racing on a rollercoaster of ups and downs – some days I raced in pain, some races my
left leg felt fatigued, others I felt not too bad. With the combination of physio, the majority of my spare
time spent lying on ice, and daily massage treatments consisting of painfully
deep pressure point release, I somehow made it through. I was happy when it was finally time to
fly back to Canada for Christmas.
I was mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with this injury
and finally I was given a small window of opportunity to sort things out.
Over Christmas my time was spent on highly focused rehab
sessions, and when it was time to cross the pond again two weeks later I felt
as though I had things more under control. Or at least I thought so. The next two World Cups went more according to plan, I was
not racing in pain and although I felt some discomfort by the third race at
each World Cup, I was always able to recover fairly well in time for the next
World Cup.
World Cup #7 in Oslo is where things really fell apart. The week opened up with a 10km Sprint
race where I posted the best result of my career finishing 9th. The next day I followed up that result
placing 13th in the 12.5km Pursuit. This was awesome and things were going perfect. I should mention however that I had to
race the Pursuit without a toe plug in my left binding. It somehow fell out in the ski bag that
the wax techs had brought down to the start, and by the time I noticed I had
about 10 seconds until my start and it was too late to do anything about it. The toe plug helps stabilize the ski
and controls how much flex the binding has. Without the toe plug there was nothing from stopping
how much flex my foot would have in the binding, and in this case the amount of
flex was unlimited which left the ski dangling off my foot after each push. This resulted in the most frustrating
World Cup race I had done, but I still managed a solid result and I had figured
out a way to push without flexing the binding too much. A situation far from ideal but I dealt
with it.
The third and last race in Oslo was a 15km Mass Start. As a biathlete, Mass Starts are the
most exciting race we do on the World Cup circuit and there’s a certain honor that
comes with qualifying to race one, because in order to do so you have to
be ranked within the top 30 in the World.
Based off my results that week I had qualified for the race in 24th
and was about to check off one of my big goals for the season.
I woke up the next morning with my back feeling a little
off. I figured it was because I
had been racing a lot and thought it could be in part because of how my body
had to compensate while racing with the binding malfunction the previous
day. I received some treatment
from our therapist that morning and felt ready to go for that afternoon’s
race. Things were going smoothly
during my warm-up until I turned a corner leaving the range and felt a sharp
stabbing jolt of pain in my low back and glut. It paralyzed me on the spot and I nearly fell over. It was weird because I didn’t fall,
trip, or stumble when I was coming around the corner; something in my back just
went. When I came to my senses a
second later it happened again. I
made it back to the range and told my coach something was wrong. I pondered for a bit, finished zeroing
and then decided to try and ski a loop closer to race pace and see how things
felt. The pain was to the point
where I couldn’t bring myself to ski anywhere near race pace. When I arrived
back at the start pen I took off my skis and thought maybe I could walk things
out. I took a few steps and nope,
this definitely wasn’t helping. I
hobbled back to the start pen where our therapist tried some pressure point
release which didn’t help either.
By this point there was about 5min until the start. I didn’t know what to do but with the
pressure of having to make a decision over the next minute, I decided to
start the race. Our wax techs were
on course about 200m from the start with spare equipment in case a ski or pole
broke during the commotion of the start, and I figured that I would get dropped
by the pack right off the back and if that was the case and the pain was too
much, I would just pull out where our techs were standing. The race started and I didn’t get
dropped like I thought I would. I
was in the mix and once the adrenaline kicked in I didn’t feel the shooting
pains in my back as much. The
first couple loops were painful but I was racing extremely well. I was shooting awesome, skiing fast (I have
no idea how) and moving up in the rankings with each loop. In a sprint to the
line I finished the race in 10th, the second best result of my
career to cap off a dream week of racing for me. A dream week of racing in terms of results that is, for what
I was about to experience next when the adrenaline of racing wore off was agonizing beyond words,
and that would last the better part of 10 months.
Since this post is getting long I'll continue where I left off with part two to follow shortly, but before that...
I commented to my girlfriend Rosanna while I was drafting this post about the emotions and memories that resurfaced while I was writing this, and to be honest I feel mostly shocked when I re read this post. I'm confused as to how I was able to ignore so many early warning signs, to keep pushing forward when I knew my body was far from 100%, and why this whole experience had to go the point where I couldn't even walk before I finally gave in. I guess it's clear I have a tough time when it comes to dealing with
pain and knowing when enough is enough.
I feel pain when training all the time. During every interval session, during every treadmill session,
during every race, my body hurts like hell. To some extent I think it’s fair to say I crave pain, the
hurt I feel during a race is satisfying, especially when my body is in top
form. I’ve taught myself early on in my career to accept
that pain and challenge it, to constantly test how hard I can push my body before
it physically gives out or until mentally I can’t handle it anymore. As ridiculous as this will sound to
non-athletes, it’s sometimes difficult to decipher what type of pain
is ok to push through, and distinguishing between the types of pain that might
be causing my body harm, although often fairly obvious, is at times difficult. Up until now I’ve been relatively injury free in my career, and I’ve had to take very
little time off, if ever from training. Being in top physical form is an amazing feeling, you feel like can you handle almost anything and to some extent you feel invisible.
In addition, another very big factor that played into all of this was how well I was racing. I think if my results had clearly been poor and I wasn't racing well due to my injury, it would have been easy for me take a step back and look at the bigger picture. But that wasn't the case, and because of that it was difficult for me to stop. Last winter was my best season to date. I tied my previous personal best result on the World Cup in the second race of the season, and as winter progressed so did my results. I was consistently placing in the top 20 and 30, had to top 10 finishes, was ranked among the worlds best for shooting, and scored points in every single World Cup race I started with the exception of my season opener in Sweden. From a results perspective things were going perfect and I was getting stronger as World Championships approached which was exactly what I had wanted.
I'll never know what would have happened if I hadn't started that last race in Oslo. Chances are that last race effort wouldn't have changed the outcome as something went really wrong with my back during my warmup. Or, maybe I would be back to racing already. Either way what's done is done and I've been forced to learn some valuable lessons and deal with the path that now lies ahead.
Stay tuned for the next instalment!