Amateur Hour

In sport, you always hear about athletes that suffer an injury then start to recover, only to injure themselves again because they didn’t give themselves enough time to recover. I always thought that this was a pretty amateur move. Athletes get injuries. It happens. But, as athletes we know that it takes time to recover from these injuries and you have to be smart about it.

I have spent the last year and a half trying to recover from a hip overuse injury. It took probably a year of this time to actually figure out what was causing the problem, but with the years of support from my home town chiropractor and the new ideas and tons of support from my medical team out here in Canmore I finally got some relief late this summer. A year and a half of physio, massage, chiropractor, and doctors appointments all seemed worth while when I finally got to lace up my runners and hit the trails with my team mates on our last trip up to the Haig this summer. For a kid who ran track and cross country all through high school it sure felt good to be able to run again. All of a sudden my hip didn’t hurt anymore and I was pumped…

…Maybe a little too pumped. After sitting out on team runs, hikes and ski walks for over a year I was pretty stoked to be back in the mix and included on these adventures. So this week when I looked a the schedule and saw that the team was doing a 4 hour run from Canmore to Banff and up Sulfur Mountain I was excited. You would think that some kind of little red light would go off in the back of my mind or that some little voice would say “Kate after doing almost no running for over a year do you really think that this is a good idea?”. But, alas, my little shoulder angel was turned off this week.

I made it about 2hrs pain free then things went downhill. I finished the workout but felt like an idiot. What an amateur move. Of course I wasn’t ready for 4 hours of running. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I couldn’t sleep that night because my hip was so sore again. I was feeling pretty rough the next day too. I guess I was just so excited to be feeling better that I rushed the rest of my recovery process. One and a half years of work for 3 weeks pain free. This thought made me really stop and think. I have worked so hard at getting back to 100% and now I have a chance to keep it this way. I now have the skills and knowledge to make my hip feel better and I know that I can do that. I also know that I am NOT going to take another year and a half to figure out how to keep it feeling that way. I made a mistake, but I defiantly learned from it. I am not going to screw it up again.

Summer is Over

2 weeks on family vacation in Maine, a training camp in Kananaskis Valley, a quick trip to the Haig and the summer is over!

It feels like the summer has just rushed on by and winter is just around the corner. We have already had a dusting of snow here in Canmore (along with 25cm of fresh powder for our weekend on the glacier). Each morning I head out my door into a frosty atmosphere. I can’t believe how fast summer disappeared!

It’s nice to have the cold weather though. I like when my cheeks are rosy and my ears are beat red. As a skier, you notice yourself and your teammates become a little more focused and serious once the temperature starts to drop. For most of us, the fall means some pretty intense training. I was roller skiing the loop up at the Nordic Centre here in Canmore a few days ago and there were at least four different teams doing intervals. It’s pretty cool to be out west surrounded by such a huge group of hard working skiers. There certainly isn’t a lack of enthusiasm out here!

The snow is on its way and we are going to be ready when it gets here. 11 more weeks until we line up to race in Callaghan Valley!