Swim, Bike, Run

With part two of my amazing interview with Johanna, I started the post label, Competitive Sport. I made it a label as I planned to add more posts about my own experiences trying to play competitive sport post-accident. Now, Johanna is a special person and what she has done, post-accident, is absolutely amazing! Unfortunately, I cannot claim to have had anything like her success, but my sport is a big part of me and something that has been and still is a very big focus of my recovery.

My sport has three disciplines: swimming, biking and running; yep, I'm in to triathlon. In this post, I wrote about being close, prior to my accident, to racing in the New Zealand Ironman triathlon and how I am very keen to have another go at the race. That keenness has meant I've started a very big process of relearning to do each discipline. Funnily enough, that process has involved relearning each in the order they actually appear in events: swim, bike, run.

Physically, swimming is the easiest as it involves no weight bearing at all. No surprises I relearnt to do it first. Initially, I had problems with breathing, but they were solved once I learnt how to keep my breathing smooth by taking a breath and then releasing it slowly each time. Next came biking; as with swimming, I needed to learn how to keep my breathing smooth here too. I also needed to learn more about my balance and about not riding when badly fatigued (in the post, Mike's Regrets, you can read how I found out my balance while biking is much poorer when I'm tired).

Last, but not least comes running! Running is by far and away the most difficult discipline, physically. All three disciplines require rapid muscle movement, but only running requires it while the muscles are bearing weight. As with my walking, I had to start from scratch and completely relearn it. To help me do that, I needed to see a physiotherapist working in Australia. He specialises in brain injury and running and gave me valuable exercises to help me, but I am still very much relearning this discipline now.

To have another crack at Ironman, both my fitness and my technique have to be top-notch. That means I have a long way to go, but I will, of course, keep you updated on my progress as it relates to recovery from TBI.

Cheers,
Mike