Tuesday marked six weeks since I first noticed the pain in my right ribcage area. The injury has progressed to a state that I would describe as improved, but still tender. And so continues the standard procedure for coming back from an injury: put a bit of stress on it, let it recover, put a bit more stress on it, let it recover, put even more stress on it, let it recover, and so on.
Having paddled hard on Monday, I intended to spend Tuesday's paddle with Joe paddling as easy as possible while taking good precise strokes. And for the most part that's what I did, though I'm sure I lapsed into some sloppiness here and there; these Tuesday paddles are always a chance for Joe and me to chit-chat and catch up with each other, and it's easy to get distracted from what I want my body to be doing. But in general I think it was a good recovery session and I came away with the injury feeling tender, still, but not too bad.
I also did a couple of strength exercises on Tuesday. I was still feeling deep fatigue in my legs, so I did just the core exercises. I took Wednesday completely off. Hoping to get in one more good round of hard workouts, both in and out of the boat, before my departure, I wanted to give my whole body a nice break.
This morning I was back at it with the whole strength routine except for the lunges. As I spend more time in the boat, I figure I can dial back some of the out-of-the-boat work. I'm still doing some stair climbs, Hindu squats, and bike riding, so my legs aren't exactly getting off easy right now.
This week began with a frigid spell outside, and I found myself paddling in sub-freezing temperatures. It's warmed up a little here in the second half of the week, but only a little. After the strength work this morning I went down to the river, and when I got there it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit and raining. In South Africa it's summer right now, and you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to enjoying some of that.
But there's still some work to do in the meantime. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did eight 20-second sprints at two-minute intervals. The sprints felt good and under normal circumstances I might have stretched the workout to ten or twelve of them, but with my still-healing rib I didn't dare push my luck. I spent the rest of my 50-minute session paddling at a comfortable cruising pace. There was at least a hard drizzle falling the whole time.
I've been feeling my rib the rest of the day. I don't think I've made it any worse than it's been lately, but I definitely want to rest it for at least the next day. I'm a veteran of all kinds of muscle and tendon injuries, but this is the first broken bone of any kind I've ever had, so I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to feel before it's a hundred percent healed.
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