It's been eleven days since I last posted something here. I haven't paddled a stroke during that period.
I'm now convinced that this pain in the right half of my ribcage is in fact a fractured rib. My buddy Rob is a chiropractor up in New York, and during a lengthy e-mail chat last week he asked me a bunch of questions and put me through a battery of tests, and that was his conclusion.
I'd always thought that to break a rib you had to be whacked across the chest with a pool cue or something like that. But Rob said that stressful movements can sometimes cause hairline fractures. I told him how the area had started hurting after I'd done a set of military presses, and he confirmed that that could have been the cause.
And so, just a month before I'm scheduled to be doing some intense paddling in South Africa, I'm out of the boat for what will probably be at least two weeks. A typical rib fracture can take around a month to heal, and stressing it prolongs the healing time, so I'm giving it the rest it needs in the hope that it'll get all better and I'll still have some decent training time before I depart.
One paddler I know who recently dealt with a broken rib is none other than Greg Barton, who hurt his rib last fall a few weeks before traveling to Australia for some racing. I don't know how he hurt it or how severe the injury was, but he wrote in a social media post that when he did get back in the boat, he was careful not to come back too fast: he'd paddle one day, then take several days off, then paddle again, then take a slightly shorter break, and so on.
So that's my plan. I'm hoping I can do my usual loop of the harbor with Joe next Tuesday. Then I'll wait until maybe next Saturday before I paddle again, and ease back into it like so.
For the non-paddling days I'm putting together some cross-training routines that stay away from stressing my ribcage area. Effective kayak technique actually relies heavily on the legs, so I'm taking this opportunity to work my legs hard with some bike riding, squats, and lunges. I'll also do some core work--primarily static drills on the stability ball.
That's how I'm dealing with this most untimely injury. Yes, I've experienced feelings of denial ("This can't be happening! No! NO!!") and anguish ("Why must this happen to me now? Why? WHY???"). Now I've reached the acceptance stage and am doing what I can to make this work. And I will make it work. It's not ideal, but "it is what it is," as people like to say. One way or another I'll be fine.
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