Tuesday 12 January 2016

The comeback starts here ...

Feels a bit strange starting this blog again, but I’m going to give it a go. This blog began back in 2012 when I decided to get back into my athletics and see how much progress I could make over a 4 year cycle, and how close I could get to the Olympics in Rio in 2016. A lot has happened since then. I spent two years training up to 3 hours a day, 6 days a week, and transformed my mind and body into that of a sprinter. I lived like a monk and made a number of sacrifices to try and get as close as possible to my dream. I made good progress, taking 0.8seconds off my 100m time and a massive 2.2seconds off my 200m time. Things were definitely going in the right direction. Then there was a bit of a hiccup; one car accident, a broken neck and collarbone, a shattered femur which required a titanium support which I’ll live with for the rest of my life, and 11 months of rehab.
I still have regular trips to the physio and need massages to break down the extensive scar tissue. Through a lot of strengthening work in the gym, low impact recovery sessions on the bike and in the pool, and some pretty uncomfortable sessions on the foam roller and stretching, I’m got my body back to a decent shape (round is a shape, right?) I was told by the consultant at Coventry hospital that I’ll never be as fast as I was; that suffering an injury like this has massive repercussions for your power and explosiveness, and I should just be happy that my leg wasn’t amputated. Well, I’m OBVIOUSLY thankful that I’ve still got two legs, and that breaking my neck didn’t paralyse me, or even kill me. I’ll be forever grateful for that. But at the same time, I can still remember how I felt when he said those words, he seemed so certain. All I felt was pissed off; I was just thinking “you don’t know me; I can’t wait to come back here and prove you wrong.” Fast forward 12 months and here we are: January 2016, just seven months away from the Olympics. I know that getting there is as close to impossible as I’ll ever be willing to admit now; perhaps it always was. But I have to believe that I can get back to where I was before, at least. So the journey begins all over again. I’ve lined up 5 competitions over the next 10 weeks, cut out the booze and sweet treats (the latter being much harder than the former!) and I’m going to try and get my body back to the point where I can perform at a level I feel I am competitive at a standard I feel happy with. And if I can get to being even 0.01s quicker than I was I will run back to that hospital and find that consultant! Here goes nothing …