Despite the smile, I was hurting when this picture was taken after a crash in Stage 2 of the Breck Epic. I didn’t know if I’d be able to race Stage 3 (the Queen’s Stage) and remained unsure until I pedaled to the start and made it through the first twenty minutes of the stage. Injuries are never good.
On December 24th of this year, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of my brush with eternity. I do a deep dive into the odyssey on episode sixteen of The Bounce Forward Podcast (Navigating Injury, loss and setback). Days before we honored the decade of fitness, health and adventure with my family, I landed in the same emergency room that I visited ten years prior when I was diagnosed with bi-lateral pulmonary embolisms (PE) and a massive DVT (deep vein thrombosis). It was eerie to be back in the same ER—almost ten years to the day but following that week-long stint in the hospital in 2013, I was diagnosed with an extremely rare clotting disorder that makes me 40-80 time more likely to clot each year, so when symptoms arise, I have to be on it like white on rice.
Fortunately, instead of being diagnosed with another PE, I was told I had an intercostal muscle strain and within five days I was back on the indoor bike each day. Unfortunately, this meant three weeks out of the weight room and two weeks out of the pool. I’m still working my way back (easy does it). I recently received a 4k+ bill for my short stint in the emergency room, but the doctor was adamant with my clotting disorder and history of PE, along with the pain I was presenting, that a CAT scan was a no brainer. Despite the cost, I’m grateful we ruled out something that takes the lives of something like 40% of people who develop one (a PE that is).
Injuries Will Come
Being injured for an athlete always sucks. Depending upon the severity and duration, injuries often bring athletes to their knees, something I’ve experienced firsthand, too many times. I’ve been training uninterrupted since my early teens. As a high school athlete, pre my Ankylosing spondylitis, which was right before my 20th birthday, I was LABELED (yes, big, bold letters is how this feels to a young athlete) as ‘injury prone.’ At the time, I couldn’t fathom a worse or more severe diagnosis from my coaches and yet it’s a phrase I still often hear coaches, trainers, PT’s and doctor use today, in the ‘enlightened’ era of 2023.
I think it’s really important to recognize and acknowledge that periods of injury often represent the most vulnerable time for athletes, whether it’s someone training day to day simply because they value movement and exercise or it’s an athlete in a performance arena—and often this is going to be magnified the younger the athlete is, especially when we’re talking about teen or early twenty something athletes.
As most of you know, this topic is why a I launched a new show, it’s the cornerstone of The Bounce Forward Podcast, where we explore how we can bounce forward from injury, illness and setback to become our strongest and truest selves (the mission of my Be Audacious Coaching). In both of my first two books, I write at length about injury and chronic pain and I write multiple blog posts each year on this topic—it’s near and dear and very much in my wheelhouse.
Long ago—well before I learned that the great Seth Godin doesn’t read reviews on Amazon—I stopped reading Amazon reviews after my first book, Grizzlies On My Mind came out. I write a lot in that book about chronic pain as a spondy warrior, navigating Ankylosing spondylitis while I circumnavigated the wilds of Yellowstone. Some of the comments on my first reviews were not only personal, but straight up cruel and thus I made the decision that I’d only read professional reviews moving forward and wouldn’t give reviews on Amazon any credence. I’ve chosen to take the same approach to the podcast where I’ve received some nasty and malicious comments regarding my willingness to share my story with injury and pain.
It’s interesting how the universe works. After that recent trip to the ER with a PE (pulmonary embolism) scare and intercostal muscle strain diagnosis, I spoke from a frustrated part, telling my wife, “I feel like I’m always navigating an injury.” One thing I’ve learned as an athlete and coach is that absolutisms abound with injured athletes. But when I unblend from that part, I see a very different truth. With over 300+ training days and 450+ hours in 2023, I’ve been healthier far more than I’ve been hurt. Injuries however can easily hijack us if we’re unable to create some space from those from those loud, anxious, frustrated or depressed parts (especially if adults saddled us with unprofitable and hurtful labels as youth).
Guiding Young Athletes and Developing Tools
I want to detour here for a moment because I’ve heard some things from adults in relation to injured athletes in recent weeks that could be detrimental to a young person’s sense of self and mental health not just now, but for many years and decades to come. Often when an adult offhandedly says something to an injured athlete, they don’t intend to cause harm, they simply aren’t aware that the careless comment can dig deep, and these young people will often need some coaching, counseling or mentoring to help navigate those poorly chosen words spoken to them by an adult (often an adult they trust). Thus, I believe for any of us working with young people, whether it’s parenting, teaching, coaching, doctoring, PT’s, counseling, that we do our best to be thoughtful and intentional when communicating with young people, especially when they are in a vulnerable place as an injured or sick athlete and that we strive to be impeccable with our word, one of Don Miguel’s Ruiz’s Four Agreements.
As a mindset/performance coach and mentor, I’ve worked with countless athletes to help lighten the metaphorical weight of an injury, because injury absolutely represents a heavy load to carry and within the last week I’ve connected with athletes from high schoolers to age-groupers in their 50’s, navigating or trying to ‘bounce back’ from injury or illness. One of those athletes is a straight up stud that had a flukish injury, and I can assure you that there’s nothing fragile about this young athlete that I coach, it just happened, but luckily for this athlete, he’s got a 4–6-week timetable for his return. As someone that’s dealt with chronic tendinopathies, I often feel like overuse injuries are the worst, because they can come out of nowhere and there’s often not a timeline of any kind for your return.
As an “injury prone” high schooler, turned spondy warrior and with a history of chronic tendinopathies, I feel like I have a PhD in navigating injuries, illness and setbacks. Thanks to a lot of counseling, reading and self-work (not to mention parental, family and friend support), and through conversations with world class athletes on The Bounce Forward Podcast, I’ve learned to stay afloat when injuries strike. I’m now far better equipped to navigate these challenging circumstances—because not being able to train each day, when it’s been a part of your weekly, monthly and yearly routine, especially if you’ve been doing this since you were a teen, always represents big loss, even though that loss may be temporary. With a more rugged mindset and robust toolkit, I’m mostly able to navigate these times in a way that aligns with my authentic self and core values—hence, I’m not nearly as prone to go off the deep end.
The Reality of Life-long Athletes
When you train consistently for decades, injuries inherently come. You all know I’m a water lover with a propensity to use water metaphors and there’s none I use more than the riding waves. That to me is what it looks like to be an athlete—we’re riding waves (ups and downs)
There are periods of health, times were ramping up volume, putting in big training blocks, pr’ing, feeling strong, alive and full of vitality, and then there’s times of stagnation where we feel flat and fatigued, or perhaps as if the waters we’re exploring are stagnant and stale. And then there’s periods of injury and illness (the setbacks) that will undoubtedly come. And then the cycle repeats itself—not in a linear fashion, but in a fluid form.
People who don’t understand this, simply don’t have a long history of training, so it behooves us to take what others say about our current state (if in the midst of navigating injury or illness), with a grain of salt—meaning, don’t take it personally, if someone says something insensitive or flat out stupid.
The philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, is featured in Brad Stulberg’s recent book, Master of Change. Thomas Kuhn is the author of the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and he describes the scientific process as a cycle of “order, disorder, reorder.” I think the same can be said for training, when looking at it through the lens of a life-long athlete—when we’re truly training for the long haul, it’s order, disorder, reorder, or adapt, adjust, reload.
When we know this truth and can accept that injury, illness and setback are an inevitable and inexorable part of the progress (and the process), we have a far better chance of being resilient rather than catastrophizing and snowballing when injury strikes. And remember, acceptance doesn’t mean we have to like, it simply means having the capacity to accept something for what it is.
This to me is the heavy lifting (metaphorically), the work that we do psychologically that we explored in Episode 16 of The Bounce Forward Podcast (Navigating Injury, Illness and Setback). Some people will get it, some people won’t and when we are in a slightly more fragile state of being injured, I think it’s imperative that we are very thoughtful about who we surround ourselves with—who we share our gold with. It’s essential that we practice delicate care, making sure we’re getting the proper support to allow us to keep developing that fortitude, which will be our life raft when we need it most as we embrace the fact that we’ve got to become adept at treading water and riding the waves, as these are an inescapable reality for life-long athlete.
That’s one of my hopes with this blog, inspire people to get out and move and when challenges strike, to get into Viktor Frankl mode and to practice that tragic optimism, rather than going off the deep end. I’ve often said, “I’m the guru of go and when I can’t go, I get low.” This is something I’m sure all athletes (especially life-long athletes) can relate to. My goal with this piece and the podcast is to help people navigate the challenges that come when injury, illness and setbacks strike. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, get into ODAAT (one day at a time mode) and double down on building our mindset and mental skills quiver so the lows are less low and the struggle is more manageable.
Until next time, dig deep, lean in and stay true.
With nothin’ but love, that’s a wrap.
PS: Go Huskies!