Just as I was about to take myself off the injury list... I am now firmly back on it.
Let me start this post by saying I have never been injured while skiing...I think you can see where this is going.
Saturday morning we woke up in Tahoe to ~1ft of the coldest, lightest powder I have ever felt. Excitement was running HIGH because this season has been so dismal in terms of snowfall.
The first run was incredible... riding up lift 6 at Kirkwood, we went skiiers left to Sentinel and found untouched beautiful snow under the cliff band in the trees. I hadn't been on my powder skiis in a while and was impressed with how well the float and ease into turns in deep powder. The snow was what I like to call "hero snow" it is so easy to ski, anyone can look like a professional.
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| Glorious pow! |
Run 2 to the same area was equally great, although slightly tracked (ie I had to avoid my own tracks from the previous run, so rough.. I know). I came down onto the connector trail, a stupid, flat, tiny little trail that gets you back to the lift and that is where disaster struck. I was thinking to myself just before I fell "I really like these skiis in powder, but they are a little awkward on groomers". My right ski caught an edge and slipped under my left. At this point had I just sat down everything would have been fine and I wouldn't be sitting here writing a blog post about it... but no... I tried to save it. I thought, oh I got this no problem, and swiftly untangled my skiis but somehow wayyy over corrected and assumed a wideleg frog position before twisting and falling. Here again, had my binding released on my left ski, I wouldn't have anything to blog about... but it didn't... the din is set too high (and I probably wasn't going fast enough?).
I knew immediately something was wrong, the pain in my left knee was throbbing (but not horrendous). After a few minutes of panic (kudos to Michelle for taking off my skiis and keeping me calm) I was able to stand up and bear weight on it. So I skiied down and went to the urgent care clinic at the lodge. Perhaps skiing down was not an incredibly good idea but I was not about to ride down in the sled for a silly knee injury.
The good news is 1) I had an xray in about 5 orientations of my knee and all my bones look good 2) my knee joint is not unstable in any gross way (so that rules out full tears) 3) it is mainly the interior so that points to MCL not ACL (I'm not actually sure if this is good news... but I am going to go with it... ACL's sound scary) 4) if it is truly just a strain and not a tear then the recovery might just be 1-2 weeks 5) I can walk around.. kinda.
The bad news is 1) it is probably a partial tear or strain of at least the MCL and possibly other ligaments 2) running is once again out and 3) worst of all I missed two epic powder days.
Right now as I write this I am sitting at the ski house watching the flakes spill down while everyone else is out skiing the powder...
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| At least I have happy snow loving pups to pass the day with. |
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| Had to end this post on a happier note, Colt and Kona cuteness! |
For one, I'd like to refute your comment that anyone can look lie a professional in that snow. You have clearly never seen me ski/snowboard (actually... yes you have).
ReplyDeleteMy first thought when you mentioned you got a knee injury in the snow was 'at least she got to ice it right away!' I don't know if that helps, but it's something. I'm also glad to hear it's not a major tear, although minor tears suck too.
You can probably still swim, or at least pull with a knee thing, right? This might be a good opportunity to build your swim base, then if you feel you're behind on biking/running when you recover you can drop the swim to 2x/week to catch up in those. 2x/week should be fine if you have the base already. Any sense of if you will be able to bike?
And yes, there should be an exponential relationship between awesomeness of finishing vs. adversity faced! (It took me a second to figure out which one of those was the independent variable so I could write it correctly... nerd alert.)
Haha nerd alert! Love it.
DeleteI think you are right about taking the opportunity to build the swim. I recently watched the IM Canada promo video and realized (in a moment of terror) that the swim is a mass start. In my head I had somehow convinced myself that it is a rolling start like IM Tahoe. Nope, definitely a battle of the masses... need to start swimming more asap!
Ack! I'm so sorry to hear this, K.Megs! On the bright (?) side, it could have been much worse, so I'm glad to hear all your bones are OK and that there are no full tears. Also, I've had partial tears in my MCL before, and it didn't take that long to recover - handful of weeks at most as long as you're smart about it (I wasn't). Agree with Rach that this will be a good time to focus on the swim and bike (if that's allowed). And we still have plenty of time!
ReplyDeleteI'm mostly sorry that you had to miss out on two days of powder :(. I'm not even a skier, but I can imagine how boooo that feels when it snows like once every 3 months. At least Kona looks happy :).
- Chen
Thanks Chen! Glad to hear that it didn't take that long to recover. I think biking is the prescribed recovery workout so I am in luck there. I am just going to ignore the run for a while :P
DeleteIt wasn't thattttttt great....
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry you had to miss the rest of the powder :( :(. At least those two runs were epic!!!
Also, I think I may have done something minor to my MCL on our last run yesterday too (trees & rocks, man. watch out for them). My knee hurts way more today.
BUT I looked up a bunch of stuff on my BART ride to work and found this biking advice (which sounds like it's for an even worse injury):
"Biking is a good exercise to begin rehabbing your knee." - http://www.livestrong.com/article/413022-is-there-any-way-i-can-start-biking-with-a-partially-torn-medial-collateral-ligament-mcl/
That's pretty much as good as a doctor's word, right? ...
- Alexis
Ah! I am bummed that you are also hurt. It seems like the mountain took more victims than usual this weekend. Good find on the biking! Gotta get ready for that century somehow...
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