Injury
About 4 weeks ago I suffered an injury during training. I was in a stretching session the night before a swell was due and overstretched injuring what has turned out to be a glute muscle. The next day I felt I was capable of surfing with a bit of prep but it didn’t go well at all and I was unable to get out of my wetsuit at the beach with a suspected trapped nerve and loss of feeling in parts of my leg. Thankfully Sara and my friends Laura and Leigh were able to respond and help. I’ve never felt pain like it and am hugely thankful that they were all there to help. There was a moment of comedy as Leigh had to pull my wetsuit off. I took a week out but made the mistake of going back too early in a supsurf session with Rich and I think I probably set my recovery back 10 days in doing so! I was then at a point of being fairly immobile, to put it mildly. I have a tendency to be a bit over optimistic when I'm injured and I am constantly trying to find the source of the pain, work at it etc and keep going which isnt always a good idea I suppose. So, it has been an unusual few weeks for me. Rich has sent me some mobility exercises which combined with some other stuff have really helped get me mobile again. The last time I was injured to the point of not being able to surf was with broken ribs after being hit by a board in the surf. But, I have been making the most of the time and working on other projects. I have been so busy over the past few months that I wonder if this is here to slow me down, change my focus. I wonder has the universe conspired to slow me down for a while. Who knows.
Thankfully the feeling is now back in my leg. I’ve been back in the water surf swimming. I am not sure how long before I’m capable of being on a board but I am hoping to get at least one session in before the end of March and the end of the winter season. It has been an unusually quiet North Atlantic season for big surf but before I was injured I was surfing all over the place regularly. Anyway, could be worse, and hopefully it isn’t, and doesn’t get worse before I’m at full recovery.
