No skating for me

The title pretty much says it all. After three days of rest my back is still not healed enough that we can say I should skate. I have seen some improvement for sure, and am getting back to normal bit by bit, but I just didn’t have enough time. Today I was able to do some exerices in order to help activate some of my deep core muscles that aren’t working and putting the extra strain on my back. But this still doesn’t change the fact that I won’t skate this weekend. Although a World Cup is important, it isn’t as important as say World Championships Trials, which are in 5 weeks. I could push through the pain this week and maybe put up some good results and then spend another week off when we get back, or I can do the smart thing and rest it fully over this weekend and hopefully be close to 100% and ready to train once we get back to Calgary on Monday and be in top shape come January. I obviously chose the latter with the support of my coach, our physiotherapist and doctor. It just doesn’t make sense to risk further injury. Needless to say I am pretty disappointed to not be racing but that’s the way it goes sometimes and the best thing for me is to rest. As an athlete we are used to pushing through pain. But there is good pain and bad pain and this is bad pain. Athletes have to do the right things for their bodies as well and in this case I will gain the most by doing nothing (well not nothing, I still have to do my physio exercises religiously!) It sucks for sure but it is what it is.

But this isn’t stopping me from all activity. Today our physio, Rebecca, suggested that I try some swimming so that I can at least keep active and try to help with a bit more stimulation of my core muscles. Now, I don’t swim very often (more like close to never) so I knew this would be an adventure. Lets just say I was not even as good as Michael Phelps at age 2. Under Reb’s watchful eye though I did improve a bit over the hour or so I was in the water, but was still getting killed by Rebecca at the end and she was only using her legs! So my swimming needs some improvement but as long as I don’t have any pain from it I will try to go back a couple more times this weekend.

Racing starts tomorrow for everyone else. I will be in the stands trying to keep my boredom levels to a minimum (you can only watch so many races when you know you should be in them). I’ll try to film a couple races and throw them up here after racing is over for the day.

Sayonara!!

This one is for CVD. He requested a picture of a beer vending machine. There is one right outside of our hotel room by the elevator. Beer in the vending machine costs $4.75 Canadian