The training went well after WOC and the shape was good, but in the beginning of september a fall and hit on my knee started a long period of injuries and bad training. It meant that I missed 1½ week of training and had to skip the Danish Champs in relay and long distance. I started running again and was optimistic that the shape would be ok before the World Cup races in Switzerland. But the morning before leaving for Arosa, I woke up with quite big pain on the outside of my other knee. I got some very painful massages (big thanks to the Swedish and Finnish physio), and was able to race in the middle distance (decent 24th place) and the sprintrelay. It was very uncomfortable to run in the high altitude (1700-2000m), and I was really struggling in the end of the sprintrelay. Even though no one in the Danish Team were in WOC-shape, it was just enough to secure the overall World Cup victory in sprintrelay.
After coming back my knee was ok, but I had to take some easy days due to some soreness in the knee after a kiropractor had loosened my fibula/tibia-joint.
Last week the Elitecenter from Århus went on a training-camp to Fredrikstad, Norway. The training went well, but the day before Blodslitet my knee got a bit sore again, and I didn't want to provoke it more, so I stopped half-way through Blodslitet, when I started feeling soreness. The knee was good the following days and I was looking forward to do the last races of the season and starting winter-training in better shape than the previous years.
BUT... Then this happened...
On monday morning I went to a strength-training session and during a quite easy and harmless exercise I dislocated my right shoulder completely. It shouldn't be possible, but the joint has most likely been weak and instabil already. Some years ago, I dislocated it a bit during a fall (2006) and playing softball on the rest-day of EOC in Latvia (2008), but I was able to put it back myself instantly both times.
I sure wasn't this time... And was the most painful hours I have ever experienced before I got painkillers and anesthesia at the hospital. It wasn't easy for the doctors to get it back where it belonged, but in the end it came back.
So now I'm pretty handicapped. It's not easy to do everything with only one hand, especially when it's the left (bad) one. But the biggest problem is that a dislocated shoulder is something that often happens again if your not careful. And it will be a long period of rehabilitation both for the shoulder and the rest of the body.
Luckily I have been having almost no pain since it was put back, and I have been able to sit on a indoor-bike and also training on a crosstrainer with the arm-sling without problems. That way I can make sure that I won't start at zero when the shoulder is good enough to start running again. The experts don't agree on when I can start running again (going from 2 weeks to 2 months), but when I start it will surely be under very controlled conditions on treadmill and roads. The way back to the forest will be long, but it's also long time until next season.
This also ends the season 2015, and I must say that it has been a bad and weird injury-season for me. A broken rib in February and now a dislocated shoulder. Really common injuries for a runner...
Despite the injuries, I can't complain about my results of this year though. Not all manage to become a World Champion!
Now the focus is on next year and the long way back. I have decided that I will go for the sprints at EOC and WOC again next year, and one thing I need to improve is my running speed on hard surface. So the rehabilitation-period the next months, which will contain a lot of running on treadmill and road, fits well with my goals. Several times I have impressed Team Denmarks doctors and physioterapists on how fast it's possible to heal fractures, so hopefully I can impress them again this time...
I'm also supposed to hand in my master thesis this winter, so maybe this break from training is not that bad at all, even though typing with only left hand has been difficult this week...
See you next year!
