12 Weeks
While breaking (heh) in a new DH bike at Mountain Creek on July 11th. I shattered my collarbone. Feeling my best on the way to the ER:
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The reason for the ride at Creek was a camping/DH trip next weekend in Vermont that was obviously not going to happen. Not sure if I stopped tumbling down the trail before I started calculating how many weeks I had until Little Sugar/Big Sugar in Bentonville, the reason I've been putting in 10 hour weeks religiously. 12 weeks. Just about the exact number everyone settles on when it comes to collarbone fracture back to MTB recovery time. Lovely.
I had about an hour drive to the hospital (Thanks
@ebarker9) to contemplate what the chances of racing were, what recovery could look like etc. Thankfully the pain was incredibly mild. All things considered the worst pain I experienced was them cleaning out my wounds in the ER. Bruised ribs didn't feel too great either but the collarbone although a bit tented seemed to be okay. ER was unsure if I needed surgery so I was sent to the Ortho Monday. I was given the choice and one of my goals of 2025 was no surgery so I opted for conservative treatment. Ortho gave me a 10% chance of a non-union since being a healthy younger person will help I decided to roll the dice. Here's the 4 week post crash X-ray:
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So while I was on the couch,
@ebarker9 continued training for LS/BS when he had
his own injury. Unfortunately less straight forward than a collarbone break, he was not going to make the races with the amount he was able to train battling the infection. So I was on my own for this one and decided a 10 day trip was a bit much and scratched the Big Sugar Gravel race. I was able to hit the trainer in a sling 8 days after my crash. Breathing heavy sucked but I knew the only chance I had was to get back training ASAP. I built up to 6/7 hour weeks within the month and felt OK about my fitness knowing the mental side of the crash and technical skills would be looming when I got back on the real bike.
I was fully cleared from my ortho at 9 weeks. Minimal pain at the break, bone was pretty much healed. Some shoulder crankiness from being in a sling for 4 weeks but generally fine especially while riding. Thankfully I was able to preserve my fitness within reason and was able to get 12 MTB rides before I made the call to drive 40 hours solo round trip Bentonville for Little Sugar.
Making it to the line felt like an accomplishment but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some goal times in mind.
