06 Mar Do it for yourself.
It’s 3 weeks-ish since I dislocated my shoulder and things have been getting better, I mean, when you hit the ground, the only way to go is up, right? So whether the progress is big or small, as long as it’s going up, I’m good. All good. Physically, my quads are getting so much bigger from all the cycling that I’ve been doing. So my training programme is basically something like 1-2hrs of cycling each morning, and another hour of cycling in the afternoon, with some leg exercises and core workouts thrown in here and there. So, it has just been lots of legs. Emotionally and mentally, I think I’m feeling heaps better too. This injury phase definitely requires a lot of brain work, to be honest. A lot of positive reinforcement and convincing myself that this has happened for a reason. Good thing is, I CAN’T WAIT TO GET IN THE BOAT AGAIN.
#notetoself: Be careful what you wish for.
My legs were absolutely stuffed at the end of last week especially after my first session in the altitude chamber. My coach suggested that I start cycling in the altitude chamber to increase the intensity of my workout and also to promote faster recovery for my shoulder too. I’m not yet convinced of its effects but sitting in the chamber and doing these crazy sufferfest sessions on the bike kills me. So the chamber tries to copy the environment if you were to be at a higher altitude- which means lower oxygen. So instead of the usual 20% of oxygen in the atmosphere, the chamber only has 13% of oxygen. My first session in the chamber were some 10s sprints on the bike and I was done for the rest of the night. Like absolutely done. Cannot move. DONE.
My training on the bike in my room for the next few days were so ridiculously hard. My legs were crying for me to stop. But I told them NO WE HAVE TO GO ON. WE MUST GO ON. And they listened. I treated them to a sports massage and floating session for being good pair of legs.
I don’t know how massage is supposed to make it better when I left the massage room feeling like as though I’ve done a hard endurance session. But trust- I’ve learnt to trust the pain.
So I’ve progressed from cycling in my room to cycling in the chamber for 2-3 sessions out of the 12 sessions on the bike in a week.
The bike trainer must have been so bored of me it decided to give way on one of the days and I landed on my left- where I dislocated my shoulder. SO MUCH FUN.
Okay, besides that, my palms are smooth and clean now and they are not good signs because I am going to suffer when I get back on the boat. I am just preparing myself for that mentally.
Otherwise, I think it is very important for me to be absolutely patient and not be tempted to do stupid things like running because I totally forgot about my shoulder the other day and I ran for the bus and immediately regretted the decision to run when the pain kicked in.
OMG I’m such a whiner. But you know what? I whine and whine and complain and sulk but at the end of the day, I still do it anyway. I push hard, sweat like a monster every time I sit on the bike, make my legs cry, and whine but still complete every session.
“And when the crashed come and disaster strikes- keep going and shoe up for every moment that you possibly can, as your absolute best self.” -Mara Abbott
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