Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A new life



No it's not what you think. OK, I haven't written anything for....over 3 months (oops), but I'm not recreating myself by becoming a musician...or handyman...or couch potato. That's just the profession I've taken on the last couple months while I've "battled" with my recovery. I really thought I would bounce back and start anew after my surgery. Well, the amount of work the doc did in there must have been pretty significant. He did say I actually had a bit of a hernia poking through and I think he doubled up on the mesh down there. That became an issue for me at work sitting all day, which made it feel like I was cutting off a nerve. My leg and groin would ache all day and feel numb. It was agonizing.

I began swimming about 4 weeks from surgery and it really did feel good. It felt like I had a guitar string in my abdomen as I stretched out. He must have really tightened things up down there. I don't really think that was the greatest thing though. I tried to run a bit at about 6 weeks out and it really kind of felt like it never went away. Man, then all I could focus while running (jogging) was "did it work, did he really fix it, am I going to have to deal with this again all year, will I have to get another surgery!!!" Ahhhh!

I just decided to take a break from it all and not focus on anything physical. Just eating and drinking and gaining 20 lbs!! Yes, my Kona weight of 180 quickly ballooned to 200. Oh well, Sloan kind of likes it. And I don't look so sickly thin. Got some work done around the house and pulled the old 68 Fender Amp out of the basement. Cleaned it up, made some electrical repairs, bought a crappy guitar from the pawn shop and started playing some tunes. I quickly realized I suck just as much as I did back in college.


Since the weather has been kind of nice a few days here and there, I've been riding the road bike a bit and it feels really good the next day. I think riding must have moved some things around down there and loosened things up a bit. Sloan worked on me one day and really got down in there and moved some scar tissue around and loosened up my groin muscle. I really think I had two things going on. One being the sports hernia and the other a touch (or more) of adductor tendinitis. It was really sore to run just a mile. Anyway, after some massage therapy, it felt much better.

Started running a little more the last week or so and it feels much better. Sloan worked on my a couple days ago and got down in there and released something. I let out a big gasp, almost passed out, and then all was better. I'm running much better now and just taking it kind of slow for now. I think I'll start trying to increase my strength of the adductors a little at a time with some simple iso moves and even some easy yoga/palates work.

The next thing on my plate is to hold another C&C Triathlete Factory Camp with my buddy Chris Sweet. We decided if we got enough participants we would do it again. It looks like its filling up slow but sure. That will be lots of fun. I enjoyed it tremendously last year.

Signed up for the Sullivan Tri again and it will be one of those fun races I'll just go through the motions. That's really been my vision so far this year. I don't really have any A races planned. Just want to get out there, do some races, have fun and make sure I'm healing. I'm thinking of doing IM Louisville next year so I think I'll try to head down there for the race this year, ride the course, check it out and then sign up the next day.

later, cd