Did my brain just planned my own sabotage?
This past weekend, I was going to race in the only race I had planned for the whole year. I used to race in semi-pro categories, and since last year I have been struggling to even sign up for local races. So this year I decided I wanted to go to a proper race. I signed up for a UCI Gravel race, and I was looking forward to it. However, lots of things happened, ending in a series of unfortunate events…
To start, last year I had quite a severe burnout, which almost sent me to the hospital. I ended up in bed for two weeks on my family trip in the UK. After I started to exercise, and at any exertion, my heart rate went up, and I felt so tired for at least a week.
Around February, I tried to sign up for a gravel race, to not stress my family, I decided not to travel with them to a hotel, and drive just by myself the day of the race (3 hours from my house). It was my worst decision, as I ended up so tired before starting the race, that it affected my performance, and I ended up crashing a few times, and with a really bad backache.
The recovery of that race took me a long time, so in meanwhile I tried to do other sports to help my back, like swimming and crossfit. Neither was helping, and I started to panic. This is the first time I have felt so bad in terms of health.
Of course, work didn’t help with my burnout, so I just needed to take it easy. My desperation ended trying to test an AI app related to sports training, and it completely messed up my fitness that I had built up until that moment. I stopped when I suddenly tried to climb some stairs, and I was struggling. I stopped and I programmed my training with a few weeks to go before the race.
One week to go, and I got a problem with one of my tyres, it was leaking. Tried to change the tyre, and the problem was the wheel. So, fortunately, I had an old wheel from a mtb tubeless ready, but I was sorting this 3 days before the race. The day before the race came, and I had everything planned in my head, bike was ready, nutrition ready, my car ready, and I had everything sorted. But then I wanted to spend time with my child, so I took him in the morning to a park near my house. He is a toddler, only two years old, and everything was going so well, so I told my kid to get a box of juice to get refreshed, and we were walking towards my car when he threw his ball towards the street with cars coming. I threw myself to stop the ball, however the ground was very slippery, so I fell…
It was so fast, that as soon as I touched the ground, I jumped to get my child. And I just grab him, put him in the car seat, and then that’s when I felt the pain… I had pain in my knees, but the worst one was on my middle finger of my left hand. I couldn’t even move my hand. I went to the shops and got some ice, and during that moment my hand just got numb. I came back home, and then I removed the ice pack, and my hand around the finger was quite swollen. I tried to close my fist, and it was so painful, so I panicked. I decided to let my hand rest and see how it goes later. However, the pain got worse, and there was a point when I wanted to get checked by a doctor. I tried to go to the nearest clinic but as soon as I got there, it was closed.. I tried to go to the hospital, but traffic was so severe that I didn’t want to spend time in the traffic plus at the hospital. That’s when I decided that racing was not a good idea next day.
In a way, my thinking told me it was a relief, as I didn’t need to put more stress on my head and body, but I felt really bad about not taking part. I still tried to apply ice and analgesic creams, but my hand the next day was still painful. I decided to still go and watch the race, and take my son so he can get excited with the bikes.
A friend told me to let it heal and that if pain is still present on the third day then go for a check, so I obeyed this not very safe advice. Monday came and pain was still there, I went to the doctors, had a scan, and thankfully it was only soft tissue injury. However, rest was recommended. Now during these days I actually was thinking about how this happened, lots of things at the last minute, my brain and body are still tired, so maybe my subconscious, was the one that provoked everything?
Positive things, I found that during this time by reading and hearing stories or using the Calm app helped me to relax and with my burnout. I also tried to focus more on my well-being now and not push myself to the limit. My brain is still healing, and the more I rest, the better it will be. I found that running is also helping me with this recovery, it is something different and running cross country is something that makes you forget even who you are.
If you managed to read everything, I appreciate it. It also took me a bit of time to be able to express myself and even tho is not a photography post, I wanted to document the things around me.