Triathlon season is quickly coming to an end. Here in upstate New York, most of the leaves have fallen off the trees and thin sheets of ice have started to form on top of most of our swimming holes. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you know that I live for the summer, and autumn is just a big kick in the nuts for me. Sadly, this October was a kick in the nuts, but also a really bad blow to the head as well.
Three weeks ago, while trying to embrace a beautiful fall day when temps were in the upper 60s, I went out for a long training ride around Sacandaga Lake. While pedalling hard to keep the power in an appropriate training zone during a long interval, an untimely lapse in concentration brought me into a ditch. While trying to steer myself back onto the road at around 30 mile per hour, my front wheel slammed into a rock wall. I went over the bars, and my face met the pavement. It has now been three weeks since the incident. My broken nose has healed, and the bruising and road rash all over my body and face has cleared up. Unfortunately though, I was left with a terrible concussion. The first few days were the worst, filled with headaches, exhaustion, pain with movement, extra ditziness (as if I needed that…), and emotional lows. With 18 days before the race in Waco, I was initially optimistic that a few days of rest would allow me to get back on the horse and train full gas in no time, that it would be a small training interruption and nothing more. Over time it became apparent that this was going to be a long road to recovery.
Waco had to be missed. Skipping a race when they’re all so spread out across the calendar this late in the year sucks, but there would have been nothing to gain by trying to go that distance with that effort yet. Today, exactly 3 weeks post crash, most of the symptoms have subsided, but two things still exacerbate the symptoms- loud noises and training at high intensity or long durations. One training session that is too much can leave my head pounding for days. Even a benign sound like the dishwasher or the dryer running can give me a headache. There have been more days than I would like where I just haven’t been capable of more than active recovery training sessions, or nothing at all. For now, my priority is getting healthy, which is going to mean more rest than training. My final race of the season is going to be Challenge Daytona on December 9th, so that leaves me with 5 more weeks to shake the last of these concussion headaches and squeeze in a training block before racing in Florida.
My non-triathlon life has had a lot more upside this month. I just started a new job as a head swim team coach for the Barracudas at the YMCA in Clifton Park. It has been close to a year since I moved away from Bennington and left my Marauders behind, so getting back into coaching is an exciting prospect. We are a small team of just 31 kids, which makes the team a very manageable size, but I’m optimistic that we will grow over the next 12 months and the program will look very different come springtime.
That’s it for now, thank you for reading and hopefully next month I will be able to tell you that I’m creating fitness again. Wish me luck!
Three weeks ago, while trying to embrace a beautiful fall day when temps were in the upper 60s, I went out for a long training ride around Sacandaga Lake. While pedalling hard to keep the power in an appropriate training zone during a long interval, an untimely lapse in concentration brought me into a ditch. While trying to steer myself back onto the road at around 30 mile per hour, my front wheel slammed into a rock wall. I went over the bars, and my face met the pavement. It has now been three weeks since the incident. My broken nose has healed, and the bruising and road rash all over my body and face has cleared up. Unfortunately though, I was left with a terrible concussion. The first few days were the worst, filled with headaches, exhaustion, pain with movement, extra ditziness (as if I needed that…), and emotional lows. With 18 days before the race in Waco, I was initially optimistic that a few days of rest would allow me to get back on the horse and train full gas in no time, that it would be a small training interruption and nothing more. Over time it became apparent that this was going to be a long road to recovery.
Waco had to be missed. Skipping a race when they’re all so spread out across the calendar this late in the year sucks, but there would have been nothing to gain by trying to go that distance with that effort yet. Today, exactly 3 weeks post crash, most of the symptoms have subsided, but two things still exacerbate the symptoms- loud noises and training at high intensity or long durations. One training session that is too much can leave my head pounding for days. Even a benign sound like the dishwasher or the dryer running can give me a headache. There have been more days than I would like where I just haven’t been capable of more than active recovery training sessions, or nothing at all. For now, my priority is getting healthy, which is going to mean more rest than training. My final race of the season is going to be Challenge Daytona on December 9th, so that leaves me with 5 more weeks to shake the last of these concussion headaches and squeeze in a training block before racing in Florida.
My non-triathlon life has had a lot more upside this month. I just started a new job as a head swim team coach for the Barracudas at the YMCA in Clifton Park. It has been close to a year since I moved away from Bennington and left my Marauders behind, so getting back into coaching is an exciting prospect. We are a small team of just 31 kids, which makes the team a very manageable size, but I’m optimistic that we will grow over the next 12 months and the program will look very different come springtime.
That’s it for now, thank you for reading and hopefully next month I will be able to tell you that I’m creating fitness again. Wish me luck!
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