I am so excited to share this story about my athlete Sara who was out on a training run the week of Leon’s, our big local competitive race. She twisted her ankle and suffered and avulsion fx, and found herself on the sidelines in a walking boot, no running, no weight bearing for several weeks. She is training for her first Ironman this fall, and done some fabulous work getting into early season shape. She was swimming biking and running better than ever, so to have this happen right before race season is getting under way was a shock and disappointment. You never know when your foot might find its way into a pot hole!
Sara and I in Kona to cheer on athletes....
The reason I am sharing this story is that Sara’s work ethic and attitude in dealing with this bump in the road is outstanding. Instead of tossing in the towel thinking the season was over, giving up on the Ironman this year, or skipping workouts and sleeping in, she asked me if she could double swim some days (gasp!), deep water run, and continue to bike. She didn’t even take down time, that week of the injury. We loaded her up with extra swimming, biking, strength and core/ along with some deep water running.
As her coach I am thinking this is almost a blessing in disguise as she has done some mega swimming and biking volume and may actually come out of this ahead in the long run. I know some of the pros take chunks of time and carve out some just biking focused weeks. Why wouldn’t a top age grouper benefit from a phase of this as well? Plus a great deal of what makes a great IM marathon is coming off the bike as fresh as possible.
And….. as of today she was released from the boot and given the ok to slowly return to running. One of my favorite things to do is bring an athlete back from an injury. I have no doubt Sara will make it accross the finish line of her first Ironman. And with this attitude and work ethic we might even see her on the start line in Kona some day!
3 comments:
Hey, this sounds vaguely ( ok not vaguely) familiar. The mental state of your athlete speaks volumes to how she will fair come fall. Glad she is back at it:) Thanks for sharing:)
GREAT blog post, Lindsay! As Sarah's husband, I know what a tremendous disappoint this was for Sarah three weeks ago. She is so incredibly committed to triathlon and to performing well at Wisconsin that she was absolutely devastated - for one evening. After that short time, she decided that she would do EVERYTHING in her power to NOT lose any fitness and to ensure that she'd be on the starting line this September.
I can tell you that she was the MODEL patient for three weeks - not taking a single step without her boot, following all of her doctor's advice, and most importantly, listened to her AWESOME coach, Lindsay. Lindsay's support and encouragement throughout the past three weeks (heck - really 2.5 years!)were really instrumental to Sarah not only getting healthy, but truly getting STRONGER WITH a broken ankle.
As Lindsay pointed out, Sarah was swimming, biking, and running faster and stronger than ever three weeks ago. She has improved her swim and bike significantly in three weeks, and by running almost daily in the pool, I'm very confident that she has lost very little run fitness. THANK YOU, LINDSAY, for helping her get through this!
Anything is possible with the right positive mental outlook, a rock solid work ethic, and great advice from a great coach!
AWESOME indeed!!!!
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