All of the resilience and patience I developed over the course of my career, I called upon over the past couple months…

Since I hurt my back in Sestriere, Italy in early February, things have been pretty tough. I tweaked my lower back during the World Cup Downhill in the middle of a turn. Although I was able to finish the run, it turned out that I had a couple of bulging disks. It was a very painful and debilitating injury and has literally been the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” so to speak. Adding the back pain, on top of my everyday knee pain, has made skiing a real challenge. I haven’t been able to move the way I normally do because I am so stiff, and the pain has been very distracting.

The highlight through all of this recent injury drama, was being in Whistler for the World Cup races in February. I had been looking forward to those races all season, and even though my body was operating—uncomfortably—at about 60%, I still somehow made it down the Downhill course safely (although not very quickly!) Being greeted by my entire family, and a collection of my closest friends from Seattle, was one of the best feelings I have experienced at a ski race. It meant so much to see all of their smiling faces at the finish and to have them there supporting me.

After Whistler I flew back to Europe to race in the last GS of the regular World Cup season, my final chance to qualify for World Cup Finals. I was ranked 32nd in the world going into the week and only needed to move into the top-25. Although my back wasn’t feeling great, I actually had some really fast training leading into the race. We made the trip north to Zwiesel, Germany for the races, but we never got to compete. A huge wind/rain storm (which I believe actually attained hurricane status) tore through the region that weekend and cancelled the races. So, a week after I arrived, I flew right back home.

The past few weeks I have been racing at Noram finals and U.S. Nationals. My back seems to have reached a plateau in its improvement since I keep cranking on it day after day skiing. I can’t express how much I am looking forward to getting back to school at Dartmouth, not only for the mental “break” from ski racing, but the physical break too. I think a few months of rest are exactly what my body needs!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm and is filed under March 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.