December 5th - Achilles tendon ruptured playing basketball. Definitely pissed off and upset. Lots of time spent wondering why this happened. Lots of time spent researching and figuring out exactly what it meant, how long recovery would be, options etc.,
December 6th- December 10th. Pissed off and feeling sorry for myself. There is no two ways about it. I was not happy. Mandy made me bathe the night I injured it ,a Thursday, otherwise I wouldn't have. After all I had been playing basketball so I was soaked with sweat. I didn't bathe again until Sunday or maybe Monday. I didn't shave until Monday and that's only because I was going up for surgery on Tuesday and didn't want to look like a complete slob. Bathing was a pain in the ass because I couldn't get below my knee wet. So if I didn't sweat, I didn't bother to bathe. I was concerned with how this would affect my work as a LEO. I was frustrated that a lot of hard work in training was going out the window. I had finally moved my back squat and clean up to numbers I was pleased with and thought I could continue to improve upon. I had finally fixed my shoulder and was having more success going overhead than ever before. I had a nice slate of competitions lined up for the next 8 months that I was excited to participate in. A good mix of OPT online comps, local comps, the CrossFit open and Toughest Competitor Alive.
December 10th- Date of Surgery. I didn't mention this in my previous post because I guess I overlooked it or forgot. The day before the surgery Mandy got sick with a 24 hour flu type thing. I of course picked it up overnight. So the night before the surgery I had body aches pretty bad. We got up and went to the hospital and I was in pretty rough shape. Body aches were so bad I wasn't even feeling my achilles. I thought I might puke at any moment. Sure enough I puked my brains out around 11:30 or so. I obviously withheld this information from the nurses as I was determined to have surgery that day. Once the surgery was complete I was in a pretty good mood. That was probably just the drugs, but I was excited that the road to recovery had begun. At least I was no longer standing still or going backwards. Now I could focus on recovery. This mood lasted a few days as I dealt with the pain and got settled at home.
December 13th-December 19th. Once the pain subsided and I got into a routine, my mood kind of changed. I realized the surgery was not going to be a magic fix and I wasn't and am not recovered at all. All the hard parts and the MONTHS of relative inactivity are ahead of me, not behind. I have watched something like 17 episodes of the television series "The Wire. " I've already seen the "The Wire." It's a great television show, but I would prefer to be doing more than crushing 3 episodes a day of a television show. I've done a whole lot of reading and Individual Design programming. Not going to work has essentially freed up 50 hours a week between commute and actual working. I used to spend approximately 7 hours a week working out. That's down to about 2-3. Some people would take an injury to be a mini-vacation and enjoy some time off from work and put their feet up. While time off form work is great at first, once I caught up on the things I could it got boring real quick.
A silver lining is that I have been able to spend a bit more time with the kids. But that obviously brings complications too. I can't take baby Sarah out of her crib or get anywhere far with her. Sean is 2.5 years old and can't sit still for two minutes. That was perfect when I was mobile as I could chase him around the house, take him outside to play soccer, baseball to the park etc., Now we sit to read a book and get through 4 pages and he wants to do something else.
We are hosting the OPT online competition at our gym this weekend. We are doing it a week late because the weekend of 14th and 15th was a work weekend for me and I wanted the opportunity to compete alongside our gym members. My role now will be as organizer, judge and coach. I'm excited to do so but when I dream at night it's not about organizing, judging and coaching. It's about competing. Competing WITH and against others. Competing AGAINST myself. Competing against what I think I can do and what I can do. Competing against what I have done in the past.
I LOVE coaching but it is not the same. They provide different levels of enjoyment. One is not better than the other, just different. Doing both makes me whole. It excites me to do both.
The key is to try and keep things short term. Next up, is my appointment on Monday the 23rd to hopefully get into a boot. In the meantime I'll just keep benching.
Short-Term goals fitness: One more upper body session on Friday, shoulders, tri's, abs, grip. Followed by tanning and oiling up. <---kidding .="" div="" mobility.="" nbsp="" xtra="">
Short term goals Dad/Husband: enjoy and cherish any extra time with the kids, even if it means just watching them pull the TV off the stand, knock over the Christmas tree, and generally take advantage of an immobile father. Help Mandy by doing what I actually can do. Be there for her as support, since this is every bit as hard for her as it is me, since she has taken on extra responsibilities to make up for what I cannot do.
Short-Term goals self improvement : Read Eric Cressey "Performance Handbook." Take OPT Program Design test online.
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