April 15th, 2006 approximately 7:00 am. The last thing my wife says to me as I'm rolling out of the garage to go for a ride is "Do you have your cell phone?" I patted my right rear jersey pocket, smiled at her, and said "yup." A few other pleasurable exchanges occur and I'm off to meet the group ride which is roughly 20-25" biking distance from my house.
Approximately 15" later I'm trucking along on my aerobars thinking what a beautiful morning it is and look down at my cyclocomputer to calculate my arrival to the group ride and all of a sudden this horrible impact to the rear of my bike and I am launched like a fighter jet off of an aircraft carrier. "Hit and run" as most of you remember.
April 21st, 2006 I am fortunate to be transferred to Tampa General Hospital under the care of one of the WORLD'S most recognized orthopedic trauma surgeons, Dr. Thomas DiPasquale. He is well recognized for acetabular (hip socket) repairs. April 23rd, two and a half hours of meticulous surgery and a boatload of morphine sulfate in the recovery room and I have survived. Let the rehab. begin!
After local orthopods told me I'd never run again, Dr. DiPasquale gives me a "NEW" lease on life and tells me it's going to be a long recovery but he thinks I stand a good chance of running again but it's "not an easy recovery and it's gonna take a good year to a year and a half."
April 26th, I've had enough of Tampa General. I arrive home (1 1/2 hours south of Tampa) and discover how stinking hot it is especially on crutches. I'm told at least 3 months of NO weight bearing on my left leg.
Fast forward July 24th, 2006. Second post-op visit with Dr. DiPasquale. He tells me everything looks good now let me see you walk. I could barely put weight on my left leg and almost fell over trying to walk. My leg atrophied so bad despite doing all the isometrics and quad sets. I did cheat and started riding an exercise bike 3 weeks before he gave me the green light to begin rehab.
Mid August I threw away the crutches and the cane and just hobbled everywhere. I had three organized sessions of physical therapy per week and 7 days a week on my own. My it was painful but nothing like what I felt when I was hit and during the first few weeks after surgery.
November was a landmark month as I was finally cleared to run even though I was still limping around. I took it though and began running 5 minutes at a time and slowly and I mean slowly increased the time. My wife and kids went back to Panama City Beach to watch IMFL and I decided then that I definitely wanted to come back to Panama City to do IMFL again. We decided 2007 was too soon but set my sights on 2008.
April 29, 2007 I got into decent enough shape to do St. Anthony's Olympic Distance tri. I would have posted a race report sooner but I was very saddened by the loss of the Team in Training Triathlete and just didn't feel like I should be excited about competing again. Briefly, I didn't know how my body was going to respond to the stress of racing being that I hadn't competed since 2005. I felt a little rusty out there but managed to PR my previous best time there by 4 minutes. I struggled a bit on the bike and had tight hamstrings during the early part of the bike leg and only ended up with a 21 mph average. I forgot my gel on the bike and didn't drink as much as I should have which resulted in a struggle on the run. It heated up quickly on the run and my vastus medialis just balled up in knots which made for a painful, slow run. Everytime my foot struck on both sides resulted in my v.medialis cramping up. By all means I was on target to PR by 11 minutes but it just didn't work out that way. At the end of the day, I was quite happy and satisfied with the fact that I had returned to racing and had overcome some big hurdles to get there.
Two weeks later I did my 2nd race of the season, another Olympic Distance event. I had a better bike leg but had the same problems on the run with my vastus medialis balling up. I never have this problem in training doing bricks so I am not sure how to remedy it. Maybe it's a bike position thing. I don't know. I do know that I am happy to be alive and happy to be able to compete in this crazy sport again. I still have a long ways to go in my recovery but I feel good about where I am right now. I decided to do a 1/2 IM at the end of the season and still plan on signing up for IMFL 2008. I'm gonna take a couple weeks off and recover now as it's been a long haul to get here. I plan on just training for the next 3 months and then hitting a couple of sprints, another olympic, and then the 1/2 IM in November.
Team Endurance Nation
Approximately 15" later I'm trucking along on my aerobars thinking what a beautiful morning it is and look down at my cyclocomputer to calculate my arrival to the group ride and all of a sudden this horrible impact to the rear of my bike and I am launched like a fighter jet off of an aircraft carrier. "Hit and run" as most of you remember.
April 21st, 2006 I am fortunate to be transferred to Tampa General Hospital under the care of one of the WORLD'S most recognized orthopedic trauma surgeons, Dr. Thomas DiPasquale. He is well recognized for acetabular (hip socket) repairs. April 23rd, two and a half hours of meticulous surgery and a boatload of morphine sulfate in the recovery room and I have survived. Let the rehab. begin!
After local orthopods told me I'd never run again, Dr. DiPasquale gives me a "NEW" lease on life and tells me it's going to be a long recovery but he thinks I stand a good chance of running again but it's "not an easy recovery and it's gonna take a good year to a year and a half."
April 26th, I've had enough of Tampa General. I arrive home (1 1/2 hours south of Tampa) and discover how stinking hot it is especially on crutches. I'm told at least 3 months of NO weight bearing on my left leg.
Fast forward July 24th, 2006. Second post-op visit with Dr. DiPasquale. He tells me everything looks good now let me see you walk. I could barely put weight on my left leg and almost fell over trying to walk. My leg atrophied so bad despite doing all the isometrics and quad sets. I did cheat and started riding an exercise bike 3 weeks before he gave me the green light to begin rehab.
Mid August I threw away the crutches and the cane and just hobbled everywhere. I had three organized sessions of physical therapy per week and 7 days a week on my own. My it was painful but nothing like what I felt when I was hit and during the first few weeks after surgery.
November was a landmark month as I was finally cleared to run even though I was still limping around. I took it though and began running 5 minutes at a time and slowly and I mean slowly increased the time. My wife and kids went back to Panama City Beach to watch IMFL and I decided then that I definitely wanted to come back to Panama City to do IMFL again. We decided 2007 was too soon but set my sights on 2008.
April 29, 2007 I got into decent enough shape to do St. Anthony's Olympic Distance tri. I would have posted a race report sooner but I was very saddened by the loss of the Team in Training Triathlete and just didn't feel like I should be excited about competing again. Briefly, I didn't know how my body was going to respond to the stress of racing being that I hadn't competed since 2005. I felt a little rusty out there but managed to PR my previous best time there by 4 minutes. I struggled a bit on the bike and had tight hamstrings during the early part of the bike leg and only ended up with a 21 mph average. I forgot my gel on the bike and didn't drink as much as I should have which resulted in a struggle on the run. It heated up quickly on the run and my vastus medialis just balled up in knots which made for a painful, slow run. Everytime my foot struck on both sides resulted in my v.medialis cramping up. By all means I was on target to PR by 11 minutes but it just didn't work out that way. At the end of the day, I was quite happy and satisfied with the fact that I had returned to racing and had overcome some big hurdles to get there.
Two weeks later I did my 2nd race of the season, another Olympic Distance event. I had a better bike leg but had the same problems on the run with my vastus medialis balling up. I never have this problem in training doing bricks so I am not sure how to remedy it. Maybe it's a bike position thing. I don't know. I do know that I am happy to be alive and happy to be able to compete in this crazy sport again. I still have a long ways to go in my recovery but I feel good about where I am right now. I decided to do a 1/2 IM at the end of the season and still plan on signing up for IMFL 2008. I'm gonna take a couple weeks off and recover now as it's been a long haul to get here. I plan on just training for the next 3 months and then hitting a couple of sprints, another olympic, and then the 1/2 IM in November.
Team Endurance Nation