I wanted a big challenge, and I found one!
Last summer, after completing a season of sprint cycling while still recovering from a serious ankle injury I was talking to Bobsleigh Canada about the possibility of returning to bobsleigh on route to the Sochi Winter Olympics (February 2014). But I was having a hard time deciding what I truly wanted to do. Every day I would lean toward a different decision – some days, “yes, of course I want to help the team and represent my country again”, while other days, “I think I’m done. How can you top winning a gold medal on home soil?” That may sound harsh, but for me the pursuit of excellence has always been motivated by the challenge, and not so much by the sport itself. So I needed to, somehow, find a bigger challenge.
In September, I was doing on-air colour commentary for the NACRA (North American-Caribbean Rugby Association) tournament in Ottawa when I was approached by the Canadian women’s rugby sevens coach. He asked me if I was ready to put the boots back on and represent Canada again on the rugby pitch!. At first I thought he was joking, but he quickly assured me that he was very serious. The team had just qualified for the World Rugby Sevens World Cup in Moscow in June 2013, and he thought I would be an asset to the team!
So… I accepted the fact that I’m an athlete and decided to commit to sport for the following year and a half. An MRI on my ankle revealed that besides a minor tear in the anterior ligament all of my injuries appeared to have healed. I then had to decide which sport I was going to do. Not an easy decision at all! After a week or two of stressing, I realized that my ‘bigger challenge’ would be doing both sports – giving back as much as I could to the two sports that had done so much for me.
But it turned out I was in for an even bigger challenge. Because I hadn’t run for more than a year and a half, my training started with mobility drills to stretch out my hip flexors that had shrunken from being on a bike for so long. After only a few weeks, I started getting pain in my right hip. An MRI revealed a torn labrum and bone spurs on the head of my femur – tons of wear and tear from overuse over the years of sport. The x-rays also revealed that my hip sockets face slightly backwards instead of the normal forward angle (which may explain my unconventional running style). I needed surgery, and the surgeon would not only have to repair and reposition the labrum and shave off the bone spurs, but also shave off the anterior side of my hip socket. The surgery took place on November 21st, 2012 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and my surgeon, Dr. Ivan Wong, was amazing!
I had to wear a hip brace for six weeks (including while sleeping) because Dr. Wong was so worried I might dislocate my hip. Since then I’ve been steadily building strength in all the muscles around my hip and leg (since there was so much atrophy from inactivity). It is now exactly four months and one week post surgery. A few days ago I did squats for the first time since before my surgery and squatted 285 pounds (for six reps), and today I ran for the first time in more than two years!
My recovery is coming along a lot faster than normal but unfortunately, as an athlete, it will never be fast enough. While it has been extremely frustrating to not be able to do things that at one time came so naturally it has also been a re-energizing boost to my determination. I have a big challenge ahead of me, and a very tight timeline. Some people have said that it’s unrealistic. But others have said that if anyone can do it, I can! And that, my friends, is fuel for the fire. It is faith in one’s abilities to reach a goal that makes one challenge the limits and boundaries defined by others. And it is in achieving that goal that redefines the realm of possibility, and makes one search yet again for another goal to challenge and test the threshold of our potential. Nobody thought it was possible to run a four-minute mile until somebody did it!
The Rugby Seven’s World Cup is only three months away and I haven’t played a rugby match since 2010 when I broke my ankle, tore some ligaments, and crushed the cartilage, and have not played a game of sevens rugby since 2008 when I broke my shoulder. Do you think I will get there? What is your challenge for the next three months?
