Sitting here at home it’a taken me nearly 30 minutes to even start writing what’s been going on in past few weeks, to make make some kind of sense of it all. I’m sure at the end of this post I would’ve written down my thoughts and hopefully in some way given myself a little bit of therapy at the same time.
Lets take a step back first, training was going really well (surprisingly) and there was a complete lack of self-doubt, as there usually is coming close to my first race of the year. At this point I’m usually over-analysing my training data thinking “what could I do to eek out a little more pace on the swim, bike or run”. Like I said there was no Imposter syndrome thoughts going on – well, 99% of the time anyway! lol
Since my last blog in early April my local Health Club had re-opened due to the governments’ relaxing of restrictions, this allowed me to get back into the gym and do my little circuit of weight machines, free weights, core and stretching exercises, some of which I’m sure raise a few eyebrows when I’m doing it. In my distance past as the fitness manager at this gym I probably would’ve gone over to this guy doing weird exercises and asked the reason for them – alway an open mind as a fitness professional. I was always taught to never stop with your quest for knowledge as the fitness industry moves pretty quickly (as do many industries I’m sure). I know of many fitness professionals who have never developed and were soon to be left behind – but anyway…
The opening of the Health Club also meant the swimming pool was back and my re-introduction into my weakest discipline was to begin again after a 4-month+ forced lay-off. As anyone can imagine the first week or two was like learning to swim again – “swimming in treacle” was a common phrase and I was seriously confused as to why I had lost the ability to swim at all. I was treated to a CSS test at the end of week 2 which I pretty much procrastinated for the whole day before having to do it before the gym shut!
I completely surprised myself by mirroring the CSS test results I had done late 2020 just before the gyms were closed so I hadn’t lost that much pace – it just seemed I had. From this point I kept to the schedules and started to show improvement.
One thing that many do naturally (but I don’t) is tumble turn at the end of each length, I don’t do this due to issues with my inner-ear, if I did I’d probably throw up straight away afterwards! Instead I used to touch the end, then put my foot down & then push off. Good friend Danny pointed out that’s at least half a second right there in my swim times, even over a 100m split that could be 2 or 3 seconds. So I started doing a breast stroke push off which has helped reducing my times already. This was going to take a few session to become the norm but that’s swimming I guess – all those little corrections and techniques that make you just a touch more efficient in the water.
Cycling had improved too, this was pretty much down to the Ironman or Half Ironman specific pacing throughout my longer rides. In the past my endurance rides were always done solo, steady state of around 60-70% of my power, alternatively I would go out with the DAP club ride and cover the distance a hell of a lot faster with those guys as I was in a group – downside was that it was’t race-specific as the pace would fluctuate throughout the course of the morning, racing for town signs, cruising, full on war-effort to the pub at the end. Great fun and definitely a stalwart of my winter training sessions but not very helpful if I’m trying to smooth-out my effort over a 2-5hr period. So longer rides have been set into sets of 15-45mins with small recoveries before going again and holding pace. Fuelling is important and I managed to get a grip with that with a view to coming off the bike absolutely knackered – something I have done a lot in the past – to run a very slow painful full or half marathon. The runs off the bike were positively affected by my pacing and fuelling on the bike so things were looking good.
Running was fairly two-dimensional, not in a negative way but in a it’s all been steady pace, no speed sessions to avoid injuries that have reared their ugly head in past years. The mid-week runs were exactly the same effort as the weekend long runs and they have naturally got a little bit quicker each week due my fitness increasing and my weight reducing – some 20+ pounds in the last 4 months.
Things were looking good…..
A fortnight go, I was just starting out on a race simulation ride, a mid-week 2hour ride followed by a 1hr run just to see if pacing was ok and fuelling etc. It was only 10 days to go before Grafman Middle Distance Triathlon where I had opted to do the Aquabike – just the swim & bike, saving my legs for the Nottingham Half Triathlon in a few weeks’ time.
After the warm-up, I had just started to settle in on my ride and BANG…..it’s all over.
For legal reasons I can’t go into the details of the incident, that investigation is ongoing and the police and solicitors etc. will sort that out over the next year or so I guess.
Here I was on the verge of a country road in a rural village screaming in pain, wanting someone in the village to come out and call an ambulance. I was attended to by (at least) two villagers, one was very helpful and reassuring, the other was on the phone to emergency services giving my details – without these people I wouldn’t be here writing this blog.
My first priority was to call Suzy and let her know, I couldn’t get through so I text her that she needed to call me straight away and within a few minutes she did and I told her what had happened. In the meantime East Anglian Air Ambulance had landed in a nearby field as well as the ambulance and a first responder paramedic, police were also on the scene a doing their bit in the incident investigating what actually had happened.
From impact to ambulance arrival it was around 20 minutes so pretty quick considering how far into the countryside I was and how far away the hospital and helicopter base was.
The ambulance guys were great and after getting some morphine into me and some entonox (child-birth gas thingy) I was quite talkative and relaxed about what had just happened – looking back it was definitely the morphine doing the talking! The air ambulance doctor – Becky was amazing, I can’t remember what she said but her re-assurance whilst I was being made stable was very comforting and within what seemed a few minutes (it was actually about an hour) I was in the ambulance and off to hospital.
The word of that evening was “catastrophise”, something which I learnt off one of the ambulance guys – the thing you do when you are hurt badly but talk & worry about everyday things like leaving the cooker on, you’ve got no milk and was supposed to shopping later, that type of thing.
I was deeply upset when my brand new cycle shorts and top – a birthday gift from Suzy a month earlier had to be cut off me, turns out looking back that was the least of my worries as most of my clothing, my shoes, my helmet (that probably did it’s job), my phone, my bike computer, my Garmin sport watch had also suffered damages and would need replacing – let alone my bike, it’s been ridden half a dozen “dry rides” since I bought late-summer last year and was now in 3 pieces (or more).
Suzy had arrived at the scene just before I was carted off to the James Paget Hospital, so she was left with the image of me lying on the floor in pain, quite visible injuries and bits of my bike to take home. Not something I would wish on anyone but I’m very much appreciative that she was there with me. The COVID situation made things worse for her as she couldn’t come with me to hospital – she was told to go home and wait for updates.
I arrived at the hospital and after a short wait outside in the ambulance I was carted into the new A&E department where I was transferred over onto a hospital bed. Soon after I was x-rayed and it was clear to see my right leg had been fractured in a couple of places due to the impact and would need surgery to pin & plate it.
Firstly though, my lower leg was at an outward angle to the upper leg, not a magnificent angle but still a noticeable angle, a good cycling mate suffered similar injuries a few years ago and is still only just starting out on his cycling comeback so these thoughts and emotions were starting to flood in, between the bouts of pain in between morphine injections. This needed resetting, which I knew was going to be a painful experience and I was soon carted off to the plastering room where I was given a dose of ketamine and before I knew it I was awake, leg straight(ish), and my leg in a full plaster cast. All I’m going to say about the ketamine is it definitely did it’s job in covering the experience – I did ask the anaesthetist what “that” just was and he told me and I said “isn’t that for horses?” (Something I remember from the film – Armageddon).
I was taken to the Orthopaedic Ward and at about 11pm I called Suzy to tell her what had happened, I needed to do this as the last thing she saw was me being carted off with no knowledge of my injuries, were there internal ones? Were there complications? She was totally in the dark so I set out to re-assure her it was nothing more than what she had seen at the scene of the incident.
Onto the next day with very little sleep I was “Nil By Mouth” and into the operating theatre in the afternoon with the reconstruction of my leg as the priority. What (I thought) was going to be a routine surgery turned out to be nearly 3 hours of cementing, plating and pinning. The plus side was I came out of surgery without the plaster cast – this in my eyes was an immediate positive as it meant the injury wasn’t that bad. Turns out full plaster casts are a thing of the past and these days they use a brace – oh well I did try and be positive.
Talking to the surgeon/consultant pretty much straight away it became clear these injuries were a little worse than what I was hoping for. The broken leg – (smashed to pieces lets be honest) was going to need a considerable amount of rehabilitation. So much so I was going to be out of action for 4 months at least just to be up and walking, adding some kind of sports fitness (if I can) it would look like 2021 was finished and I’d be better looking at 2022 instead. To say this was a setback was a little bit of an understatement, in the general scheme of things I’m lucky to be alive but still, bloody nearly 2 years of no competition and then on the cusp of my first race in 2021 only to be told “sorry mate – better give it another year” did hit me hard.
The issue I have with that information and then me trying to process it is that exercise & sport have always been my “go to” when I feel a little down, I think I have said it in past blogs – it’s always been my healthy distraction from things. If it gets a bit hard then I do a session on the bike, or go for a run or swim and all’s well with the world afterwards – mostly 🙂 To not have this release in the next few months might push my mental health a little more and for that I was (and still am) worried.
One person who struck a note with me at this point was Tim “The” Don – a world class triathlete who had a horrific injury just days (hours I think) before the Kona Ironman World Championships. He was at the peak of his fitness and raring to go only to be harpooned by a motorist and ending up with a Halo Neck-Brace contraption and told he had minimal chance of racing anytime soon. If you happen to have a spare 28 minutes his documentary “The Man With A Halo” can be found on YouTube and it is a “must watch” documentary.
My experience, although nothing compared to his injuries made me contact him on social media explaining my situation and asking for his inspiration and what he did to get back to be still one of the best triathletes in the world. I had little expectations of a reply but amazingly he reached out to me and replied with a very comprehensive way of what he did to return to racing. I was star-struck to say the least – here was this guy, top of his game, training out in Lanzarote I think, with so much better things to do than answer people like me – but it’s exactly what he did. What a guy!
So here I was, lying in a hospital bed, with my future uncertain.
Goal #1 – Get out of bed. This took 3 days to summon the courage to get up and deal with the downward pressure and throbbing of my inflamed right leg. It was only a transfer to the bedside chair but still – more than what I could’ve achieved a few days earlier.
Goal #2 – walk. Ok – this was upsetting. I walked 3 steps, not even as far as the end of the hospital bed before I nearly collapsed in sweat and exhaustion. And then crying like a baby about how I can’t even do that when a week earlier I was prepping for a Half Ironman 🙁 The next day I dosed up on a bit of morphine and managed about 15 steps before (again) collapsing in my bed sleeping for the rest of the day.
Goal #3 – go to the toilet on my own. Ok – I won’t go into the details but it’s a serious part of my own pride that prevents me from someone else wiping my bum! I’m not that old or senile just yet. As soon as I could walk on crutches it wasn’t long before I completed this task. In fairness to the hospital staff I was supposed to be accompanied by a nurse just In case I was uneasy on my feet on the crutches but needs must and on several occasions they were busy elsewhere dealing with older patients, dimentia patients who had fallen and broken hips etc. so I felt my needs weren’t greater than theirs so I did this on my own – sometime being told off for doing so.
Goal #4 – get home. I did this a couple of days ago, the adjustment hasn’t been easy but it hasn’t been that hard either. Suzy’s been great and she’s very attentive, I’m thinking she’s just happy to have me back home as opposed to me being there without her knowing what’s going on. That said she did visit me every day whilst I was in hospital – a difficult thing to do considering the booking of time slots and the COVID protocols she had to go through to even get there.
Goal #5 – get off the drugs. Ok – one step at a time – I’m not ready for that yet. It’s still bloody painful.
The next steps are TBA as it’s a steep learning curve at the moment. The next time I go back to hospital is in 4 weeks’ time – that’ll be 6 weeks after the incident. This is to check the fracture, an x-ray no doubt and then decide if I can bear weight on it. Then to learn to walk again , with or without crutches and then see if my triathlon career is over before it really began. It sounds like I’m being over-dramatic but I’m just trying to simplify it for my own sake. In reality I guess I can swim as that’s non-weight bearing no matter what so that bit’s safe.The cycling part may depend on the mechanics of my knee and if nothing “catches” on the pedal cycle – and then we can decide whether cycling is back to full competition (TT’s and the like) or just recreational. And then running – because that’s the one that’s going to test that joint.
So we’ll see….
This where I miss someone out….
The Villagers – Kelly & Jenny I think who came out to my aid.
The guy who got out of his car and rang the emergency services also telling them to “hurry up” – I remember that bit! lol
The ambulance crew – taught me the word “catastrophise”.
East Anglian Air Ambulance Crew – and “Becky” for calming me down.
James Paget A&E Crew – very attentive and nothing was too much for them.
A&E Anaesthetist – thanks for the Ketamine 🙂 lol
JPH Porters – keeping me in high spirits on all my journeys to X-Ray, CT Scans and Theatres!
Mr Modi – my consultant and his assistant who reconstructed my leg and gave me all the re-assurance I asked for.
Time “The” Don – for his response in my time of need. Such an inspiring reply from one of my inspirations before any of this happening.
The Physio Team at JPH who taught me to walk again – such a basic human function and so very upsetting when you can’t do it – sorry for the tears 🙁
The nursing team on Ward 6 at JPH – amazing commitment to the job at times when they’re short-staffed and pushed beyond human limits with their compassion. Made me realise how bad the NHS is on it’s knees – I’m so grateful for their time and care.
All my friends who text me and messaged me through whatever form of social media, for those who hadn’t received a reply my phone is utterly broken and I’m using my mother in law’s spare phone at the moment!
I may have missed some replies in the first 24-48hrs due to my phone dying a slow and horrible death following the collision – sorry if that is the case 🙁
Cheryl & Roger – ho have kept me entertained since I have got back home.
And finally Suzy…
At my lowest I wanted you by my side, from the incident, all through the setbacks and the painful realities you have kept me going and believed in me to come out of this hopefully back to a full recovery.
Through all this you’ve put me first and I hope that one day I can show you how much this has meant to me.
I cannot even comprehend how you managed to compete at Grafman without me and then go on to record a Personal Best and an improvement of over 22 minutes – you are truly a remarkable person and I love you so much.
I think it’s safe to say that this “Journey Not Destination” might be a tricky one!