Friday 24 June 2016

Diary of an injury: my back

[Don't miss 2022's version]

Sigh, another injury diary. I suppose they'll get more frequent as I grow older, until they merge into permanence. This one is my back; not the first time I've hurt it; the last time was Sabaudia, and it took a week or more to recover.

This one started with a twinge at the ergs on Thursday. I can't now recall if I was slightly off when I got there or not: but it was raining-with-thunder, and suddenly we were erging instead of rowing. About half way through I definitely twinged - perhaps when on the sliders, its so easy to go up to ridiculous rates on those - and like a fool I didn't stop. Because as Stroke I felt obliged to be Strong in front of the young folk. Idiot.

Day one: an uncomfortable night, and hard to move next day; bending over tricky and done from the knees. Drove in instead of cycling, slow all day.

Day two (Sat): still very stiff and painful when getting up; hard to even sit without pain. But cycled into Waterstones with M. Skipped rowing, obvs. Late: found lying on the Red sofa helped, and was surprised when I got up at 10 pm to feel much better: movement without pain, joy.

Day three (Sun): somewhat annoyed to find that, although I'd slept much better, I'm back to movement with pain. But again, towards end of day and time on sofa, feel better.

Following days: gradual improvement. Again, lying on the sofa helps, time immobile in a chair at work doesn't. Drive in to work usually, although pushing down on the clutch  car feeling worse than I get in.

Tues: skip outing; I'm clearly not fit.

Weds: cycle in with Miranda, since I need to take her bike to Light Blue. This goes with no problems. Try a brief erg set to 1 at lunchtime: again, fine, even at the dizzy heights of 1:58. That's good, because I have an outing tomorrow.

Thurs: first outing since last Thursday. Ideally, I'd have given myself a few more days rest, and/or had a rather lighter outing (lock-n-reach, a few starts, two 500 m pieces). At another time of year, or if not stroke, I'd have done so. But since we're 3 weeks off bumps I gave it a go, having decided it would be OK, and it was.

Fri: last night set me back a little, but not much I think.

Sat: ha, overoptimism again. Thursday definitely set me back, so on Sat I just did the first lock of a 2-lock outing, and did that quite gingerly. We still did one rolling start though. In retrospect I should probably have skipped Thursday, but for the invisible peer pressure. Or perhaps, better said as self-pressure.

Sun: better. Did some gardening, and some beekeeping, but got Daniel to do the grass cutting and lifting. Lying flat on the sofa still pleasant.

Mon: (am) still a dull ache but much less in the way of twinge.

Tues: 14 km of outing in M1 with a 1800 m piece down the Time Race course goes OK. I'm not perfectly back to health but its close.

Weds: and I'm still OK in the morning. There's still some pain, but now its much closer to deep bruises reminding me they are still there. If I try to stand up from sitting for a while its hard to straighten up immediately. If I try to touch my toes I can nearly get to my ankles.

Thurs: outing: fine.

Sat: outing, three locks and two pieces, fine.

Sun: gardening, fine.

I'll end it there. The "fine"s above mean I did all those things without problems. However, my back still isn't perfect, but is now uninterestingly so.