Yesterday, an EN athlete who is qualified for Kona this October fell while cycling, breaking his pelvis. He asked for advice from the team. My response:
Rule #1: The Outcome is not pre-ordained, but it IS within your control.
(If you don’t know the details of the accident which put me out of commission for two months at literally the height of my triathlon career – when was fitter than I have been before or since – you can find some details here: https://bikrutz.org/triblog/?p=506)
What helped me return to not only activity, but continued athletic success?
#2 Positive Attitude. This is something you either have or you don’t. An inner understanding that the only option is persistence and improvement. No question that’s a core part of your make-up, so just follow that inner beacon.
#3 Support. The very fact you’ve posted this shows you’ve got this covered as well. People will reach out to you, offer to help, provide sympathy, condolences, etc. Don’t reject any of that; the power of our “thoughts and prayers” is real no matter how you view it.
#4 Mojo. I was signed up for IM Arizona 2 months after the accident. Even though I still had significant issues (e.g., couldn’t eat solid food, was weak from weight loss, had pain in various places) I could walk and talk and had plane tickets and lodging already paid for. So I showed up, went through the registration process to get my bib and goodies, and participated in all the EN pre-race festivities. I made friends there IRL which I have kept to this day.
#5 Get a Whiteboard. OK, enough soft stuff, how did I actually return to form? I had a bunch of prescribed duties: PT, OT, speech therapy (to learn to swallow again), meds, nursing care for feeding tube and neck collar, etc. I charted each of those daily on a whiteboard. As my medical condition improved, I converted that to planning for and documenting my daily “training”, which started with very slow, short walks. But I could see the plan for and result of small daily increments.
#6 Negotiate With Your Doctors. It’s imperative that your medical team know what YOUR specific goals are. All of us are unique, but as an MD myself, physicians tend to genericize their patients unless forced to deal with their peccadillos. I did my best to convince neurosurgeons and orthopedists and otolaryngologists and oral surgeons that a 62 year old man was actually interested in returning to surgical practice despite significant spinal cord injury which reduced the strength and dexterity of his hands, and in returning to top-level Ironman competition. Be clear about your past experience and future goals.
# 7 Be Flexible with your Targets. As you rehab, your ability to perform will make itself known. Learn as you go about what you are capable of, and adjust your targets accordingly. Again, this is something I know you do naturally, but it’s imperative you neither get ahead of yourself, or needlessly stagnate. I thought I’d be back to top form in nine months for IM Coeur D’Alene, but flopped there. By 14 months, however, I was back on top at IM AZ.
# 8 Get Back to Competition. Within three months, I had signed up for a 5K. I went something like 51 minutes, at the back with the baby strollers. I didn’t know it was possible to walk that slowly. But I finished it despite the blow to my ego. And a few weeks later, I was ready to run a 25′ 5K, only 5 minutes slower that the year before. Those two “races” were a major boost to my self-confidence and belief that I could eventually return to full-bore IM training and racing.
As to specifics for rehab-ing from a broken pelvis to world-class form, well, you’ve got a content-expert in Coach P on that. He came out the other side of that exact injury to return to Kona. And there are others on the team we should ping if they don’t respond here initially.