Happy New Year to everyone! My 2013 ended
with fracture in the coccyx. A small hit onto a stone while sledging that has
turned into a real nightmare and disturbed my winter training for weeks
(hopefully not for months). So, a new year could have started happier but at
least I know that there's only one way up and that each day will be better.
Usually we have had a habit of heading
south to warmth and sun during the holidays but this year we headed north in
order to enjoy a true white Christmas with close relatives in Lapland. We were
amazed by all the snow and beauty when we got to Kittilä airport and I couldn't
take my eyes off the snow-covered trees while we drove to Levi. We had hired an
absolutely lovely cottage just by the ski tracks with Sami's brothers and their
families and I was looking forward to all cross-country skiing I was going to
do there. Everything was so idyllic and perfect that we could only expect to
have a fantastic week ahead.
I was so thrilled about it all that I was
among the firsts to run out and sledge like a kid but it didn't take many
slides before my white dream came to a sudden end when I landed onto a stone. Spot
on onto a stone with my coccyx ahead. That was it. I could still enjoy the atmosphere,
lovely company, delicious food and beautiful scenery but it was all dimmed a
bit by the constant pain I was having. I got some pretty strong painkillers
that helped me through the worst and I think I would have got back home with
mostly good memories if the travel itself hadn't been so horrible. After seven
days from the injury I still couldn't sit without pain and having to sit
through two flights and a drive from London was just too much.
I've had a few flashbacks from 2001 when I
got several fractures in my pelvis and spine in a car accident and had constant
pain for months. This is nothing like that but there are still some
similarities. The affected area is anatomically quite close to what it was then
and if I accidentally move my hip or back a bit too much or too fast the pain
is about the same what it was back then. I can't understand how I ever got
through it but having that horrible memory helps me now. This should be a piece
of cake compared to what I went through then.
It's funny how relative everything is. Pain
too. When running the last 15k of Florence marathon less than two months ago
with cramping legs, big blisters and black nails, I thought I was in pain. But
now I know better. I wasn't in pain. Maybe I was not having my best day as a
runner but I was still having a time of my life, doing something I love.
Blisters made me cry, cramping legs protested and tried to make me stop and all
signals from my body said I should quit but I didn't. In the finish I was
disappointed not to break the time I had set but I was still quite happy and
proud that I had forced myself through the pain and finished the race. Sadly it
took me over a month to realize this. The pain you have when you suffer in a
race is the best pain I know. That's the pain I love, the pain I miss, and the
pain I want to experience again!
