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Light, Nimble and Optimistic

After hearing the news that I had to wait another four to six weeks before getting on the bike again and racing, I decided to seek a second opinion. I have a lot of respect for the doctor who has been absolutely great thus far, but I couldn't help thinking he might be acting a little overly-conservative - so I either wanted to confirm his opinion or see what someone else might say.

The doctor I went to was Dr. Arthur Ting. He has a well-known reputation in the industry and based out of California, I next-day shipped my x-rays over for him to look at. Upon his review, he called me up and we spoke at length about the collarbone injury. He stated that at 4-6 weeks from the surgery (I'm at 6 weeks), the bone is essentially healed. I had a lot of questions for him and we talked extensively about what I'm doing now in physical therapy; and given the exercises I'm currently doing, the bone is already doing the bulk of the work (not the plate) and as long as I'm progressing gradually without pain, that is a very good sign. He stated that of course the longer I wait the more it will heal, but the majority of the healing occurs in that 4-6 week window. Another one or two weeks won't necessarily make much of a difference. Six months or a year might, but even then, it's a smaller amount of healing compared to the initial time period, which is most important. He ultimately said that looking at the x-rays and given the range of motion I have and exercises I'm doing, he would typically give one of his own patients the okay to race.

So that was one good sign. In addition to physical therapy three times a week, I've been going to the gym every day for the past week and a half. I've been running to start, with upper and lower body exercises to follow. I've generally broken up the upper body workouts into chest/back and biceps/triceps. In the past I've generally favored an overall-type workout, but the specific chest/back exercises have really been good to do. Enhanced stretching, range of motion, along with added strength have all been the end result thus far. I'm not nearly at the weights I was doing before the injury, but I'd like to be careful to not push too hard too soon.

I'll also do a few different leg exercises at the gym and then ride the indoor bicycle-trainer at night. This has taken a fair bit of work to build back up my cardio, as I lost nearly all I had before the injury. I did a 60-minute spinning class at the gym last night with mostly women (yes, it's a little different, but it's a helluva workout) which completely kicked my ass, but felt great afterwards. My plan is to do a couple more classes before next weekend, which really should speed up the process of getting into shape. Lastly, I snuck into Kart 2 Kart the other night and turned some laps on the 50 without any major issues, so that was another good sign.

The only thing is that I'm still about ten pounds lighter from what I was before the injury. That's good from a racing standpoint, but not a weight I want to stay at. Of course with people talking about how fast our bike is, taking another ten pounds off the rider/weight combo surely won't make the bike any slower.

I don't want to jump the gun about racing at BeaveRun next weekend, but the chances of it are at least looking much better than they were a week ago.

Cheers,

eddie

Friday, June 13th, 2008 | POSTED AT: 6:04 AM
FILED UNDER: General