Day by Day
“Sorry you have to take at least a month and a half off of running” those are some words that athletes never want to hear, especially when your goals are high and you must work hard to reach them. At the beginning of April is when I received this news… I was devastated! After I shed a few tears (or should I say a lot!) and many sessions with our sports psychologist I began to realize very slowly that maybe this time off and this injury was actually a good thing for my long career as a triathlete. A good thing to learn early on what my body can and cannot handle as a high performance athlete and how to deal with devastation and all the bumps in the road that could affect my plans. This time off was a good reset as it got me more fired up and eager to race harder and train harder on what I could improve at that time. I started swimming twice a day and doing some extra bikes… I soon realized that I didn’t need to be doing all this extra swimming and biking and in order to put 100% in at the practices that counted, I just needed to recover and let my legs heal. I went to 2 athletic therapy sessions a week that aimed to decrease the recovery time and get me back running faster.
Last week thanks to the hard working staff at the Pan Am clinic and the Canadian Sports Centre along with my coach Gary, I ran for the very first time! Ok… used the fancy Alter-G treadmill that takes away your body weight and makes it easier to transition back into running but I still consider it running. I started running at only 55% of my body weight and in the two sessions I’ve done so far I’ve been able to go all the way up to 75% of my body weight. Although this will be a long process I love doing any sort of running and can’t wait to run in the forest again.
On a good note Alter Ego Cycles recently hooked me up with a sweet deal on a new Cervelo S3. This new bike is so amazing and I’m super excited and looking forward to everything coming together and running once again and can’t wait to race faster and stronger than last year!
A big thanks as well to all my supporters especially Princess Auto who has continued to support me throughout this tough time. I will be back and I’ll be fighting harder than ever!
