Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Overcoming Set Backs

The end of 2015 has been a rough one for me.  Due to some unforeseen circumstances my plans to compete in 2016 have to be adjusted.  Rather than starting my competition season in the spring I will be waiting until the fall.  Starting at the end but there is nothing wrong with that.

In mid November I wasn't feeling well, actually most people I knew weren't feeling well.  I blame it on the strange weather we had here in Iowa, oddly warm and lots of rain.  I ended up with walking pneumonia, it took so much out of me.  I had to take three weeks off from training and it was so rough getting back into it.  Kickboxing was my go to, I was with other people who would push me and it is insanely fun.  I couldn't believe how wiped I got after just 5 minutes but I pushed through and got about two weeks in with Kosama.

This past Sunday myself, my husband and some of my siblings and their significant others played in a dodgeball tournament.  It was the first one here in Cedar Rapids and we got to play where our indoor soccer team plays.  We had a BLAST, even though none of us had played since high school.  There were a couple of traveling professional teams that played, I really had no idea there were dodgeball teams that travel all over and play.  They were GOOD and they threw the ball HARD.  We were The Mighty Duckers, although we were not quite as mighty as we wanted to be ;)


We were guaranteed three ten minute games, which actually meant about 3-5 games in a ten minute span.  We did alright in our first time slot and then played one of the professional teams in our second time slot.  OH MY GOODNESS, I didn't realize how much a ball like that could hurt.  The crappiest part about it was the attitude of some of their players, completely rude even after hitting my brothers girlfriend in the face (which is illegal) and rather than saying "good game" a couple players said "thank you" because they kicked our butts.  During one of these games I was walking off court because I was out and someone threw a ball at me, my left arm happened to be up and the ball hit my fist straight on jamming my wrist.  I thought it was broken I was in so much pain, thankfully an EMT from another team was watching so he came over immediately and confirmed it was not broken but that I should go to the ER.

So of course I stayed and played in our final round of pool play, not the smartest I know but I just couldn't not play in our last round.  I made it through but could not bend my hand down and could not grip anything.

My daughter and I went to the ER after we were finished, I have a severe strain in my left wrist.  Depending on how things go recovery could be 4-8 weeks, weight training is a huge no-no until my wrist is completely healed.


DANG IT.

I just got back into the groove and BAM knocked back again.  I will be able to do cardio but my husband is leery about that for this week at least and honestly with the pain I have other than possibly the elliptical I'm not sure what I could do.

Frustration set in big time on Sunday as I let it really sink in realizing that the best choice I can make would be to push back my competition season.  In reality I will have nearly two months off from weight training and I will NOT step on stage again unless I am 100% confident, happy and ready to present a better me.

I am grateful for all of the support I have around me, thankful for the knowledge that stepping on stage is something I can do at anytime no matter how much older I am getting ;)  This will give me time to ease back into running before I start weight training again so I am able to do hopefully one or two half marathons in the spring.

Pushing forward is the only choice I have, for some reason these set backs have popped up but I will overcome them.  My wrist will heal, my body is still strong and I will just keep swimming!