It's killing me but..........

Alex Simmons

Maybe. Perhaps I can relate another story.

In the early weeks of hospitalisation, we were trying to save my leg, hoping the remaining muscle tissue would survive (I had already lost most of one small muscle). My leg had to be cut open on both sides from knee to ankle (fasciotomy) as a result of something known as compartment syndrome (excessive swelling of lower limb). That was a very tough period. Lots of drug induced nightmares, hallucinations etc. Some really really weird shit but nothing related to the accident.

After 5-6 weeks, all seemed to be going OK and it appeared as though my tissue had responded to the treatment and the doctors decided it was time to close my leg back up.

The morning after the op, my ortho surgeon came in to tell me the news that quite the contrary to what they thought, the plastic surgeon who performed the op discovered the muscle tissue under the top layer had in fact died and the leg was not viable. I remember that moment quite well even though I was pretty weak.

Initially I was somewhat shocked (since I was expecting to learn of the successful closure) and began to feel somewhat faint, eyes falling shut and head falling to one side as the blood pressure dropped.

Doc said "I'll come back later when you're....".

Hearing that I knew instantly I wanted none of that delaying crap, I pointed right at him and said, "stay right there, just give me a minute". That gave me a few secs to get the blood back to my head, reopen my eyes and lift my head back up to face him.

"So, it's gotta come off right?"
"Most likely"
"So when do we do that? No mucking around here, let's just get on with it."

In my mind there was no room for anger or despondency. Just do what is necessary and get on with it. I got the feeling the surgeons don't get that reaction too often.

He didn't give me a specific answer and I consulted the other surgeons (plastic & vascular) to make sure I was OK with the prognosis. That happened over the next day I suppose. Just more delays as far as I was concerned. I had to wait two weeks before they would do the amputation.

It seems stupid but I was more annoyed about not being able to represent my country at the world masters tracks champs than I was about losing the leg (as two weeks before the accident I'd earned the right to wear my country's colours).

Angry? No. Frustrated and annoyed, yes.

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Felt_Rider

I watched intently for Alex's posts and blog entries through the ordeal because I am interested in sports psychology. Through what I read it was an amazing and inspirational to see a person go through and overcome an ordeal such as this and now good to see the beginning of a new adventure going forward.

We often have this saying around the office, "it is what it is" and that is used when we want to change the course and we made an effort to change the course, but it seems that destiny has it is own path that may not be swayed by our influence. There is just nothing we can do. If that is the case might as well look at how to go that direction efficiently as possible rather being caught up using time and energy fighting against the inevitable.

It was good to see Alex chose to get on with it with an attitude of looking ahead and anticipating going forward. In the past I have seen athletes give up much more easily over lesser circumstances and I am not criticizing them, but when hardship came it was quickly revealed their passion for the sport was not as great as they thought. They bowed out with discouragement to a sedentary life giving up what they thought for many years was their passion. So it is refreshing to many of us to look at what Alex endured and yet moved forward setting new goals and overcoming the obstacles in life.


Alex, now that you are getting in full swing of things how quickly is your body composition changing? How far are you from your competitive weight?

I wish I could say mine was dropping. I am hovering around 10% BF so I plenty of room to drop. Now that I am training with a PM I can monitor that aspect a little better with glycogen utilization and replacement.

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Alex Simmons

Well my race weight at Nationals was ~ 80-81kg, best form of my life. Maybe 82kg when I crashed. I have been less at 78-79kg in a prior season but never held that level for long. I am 95-96kg at present (and that's minus the lower leg).

While in hospital I dropped down to 65kg. I was thinking about that, basically once my appetite returned I gained lots of weight during a lengthy sedentary period before and after getting out of hospital. So weight gain has presumably been mostly unproductive mass as the volume of exercise I was capable of was negligible.

Issue with body comp changes is the inability at the moment to ride long hours and burn kJ. So far I've been good for about an hour at a go. Had to have a third day off today as leg stump is still sore.

So in reality, I have a long, long way to go. Not only to lose excess mass but to rebuild the quality of mass I had. That in it's own right throws up further technical challenges with how well my leg fits my prosthetic socket. At >$5,000 a pop, these are not items you want to have to replace frequently.

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Steve_B

Yeah, I bet that they didn't know what to make of you. They didn't send the shrink by for a chat?

Alex Simmons

Actually they did. But I think that was normal practice. After initial discussion with the Psych team, I had 3 or 4 visits from a psych nurse while inside. They were pretty good to talk to.

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Pendejo

To all of you interested in the psychological factors in performance, determination, and even survival, I strongly recommend the book "Deep Survival," by Laurence Gonzales. Check its description on amazon.com. It's one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. I suspect Alex would recognize himself in the book. One thing it says is that "rule breakers" tend to do better in dire circumstances than do "rule followers." When the doctor says "you'll never walk again," the latter gives away all his shoes, while the former buys an expensive new pair of running shoes.

Another fascinating part of the book explains why very young children seem to have a better chance of surviving being lost in the wilderness than do older, more mature, more experienced people. And it's a mental thing, not physical. And I was amazed to read that many people, when they realize they are lost in the wilderness, lie down, make themselves comfortable, and die. Quickly.

Steve_B

I'm sure it is, especially for amputation candidates. I was just getting at whether they thought it unusual to not be interested in pussy-footing around.

In any case, I understand where you are coming from to soem extent. On a purely rational, non-emotional basis - they were going to take the thing off anyway, it was just a question of when. Delaying it didn't help anybody.

Alex Simmons

Come to think of it, I don't think I talked with the psych team until after the amputation.

I honestly don't recall it being a topic of any of our conversations.

If I really wanted to, I could go through the 800 pages of hospital clinical notes I have a copy of.... but somehow I don't think that would do me much good right now.

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PaulMD

Did my second timetrial: Medical National Championships.
And I became second, again (just like last week)

Stats:
12.08km, 16min50sec, AP 338w (5.12w/kg), NP 337w, IF 1.053, TSS 30.7, C 100, S 43.7km/hour

WKO file

I started to hard again, stupid stupid me. This time a timetrial with almost no wind but my average speed was only 0.2km/hour faster than last week while I did 5 watts more work. When I look at my powerfile I see that there were 8 corners were I had to coast and brake.

Now I am gonna do some base again. Serious L4 training to boost my FTP to > 320watts 350 here I come!

PS Tyson where are you? And how are you doing?

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Felt_Rider

With the 2nd week now behind me my wife is seeing the 2nd payoff with the purchase of a PM and an increase in intensity and consistency being the 1st. The 2nd payoff is a rapidly changing body composition. Since the beginning of the year my bodyweight was stuck at 170 lbs and was not budging despite a change in calories and yesterday evening I weighed 164 lbs. My wife made a comment about looking thinner so that prompted me to step on the scale.

Still a long way to go, but I do believe progress breeds motivation and I am getting more fired up everyday.

Who was it that needed evidence that the PM was a worthy tool?
At least for me I am seeing evidence that I can more clearly dial in the training load rather than use RPE as I was doing.

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kopride

It really does alter the whole training paradigm. Like numbers on the barbell.

My wife also likes the PM from an efficiency level. Better results, less time on the bike and away from the family.

kopride

Funny Story:

As a favor to a neighbor, I took his wife's triathelete cousin out for a ride last week. The guy talked a mile a minute about how great he was. The ride is a pretty hilly two hour loop and I did warn him not to shoot his wad in the first half of the ride. I literally waited at the top of every long steep hill circling until he reached the top.

In an attempt to soothe his ego, I did remark that his tri bike could use better gearing for hilly terrain. (It looked like his lowest was a 39/23). After a steep climb, the ride goes into a valley, but any moron should know that there is no elevator on the other side. In other words, you are going to have to climb your way out. In the flat parts of the valley, this guy is churning out big numbers on his tri bars with another hour of real hilly stuff ahead. I did warn him that there was a lot more climbing left to do, but then he basically did his own thing and was burning mathes by the packful. I either drafted or just stayed close until we had to start the climb out; at which point I again opened up a two minute plus gap on a ten minute steep climb to the ridge line.

After a few more minutes of flats where he caught his breath, he must have felt the need to redeem himself and hammered another 4 minute hard stretch where my PM showed 315 while drafting. After the match was burnt, he commented that although he could not climb well "because his bike was not set up right," it was a good thing that the ride wasn't flat because "I seemed to have trouble keeping up with him on the flats." I told him that he was in luck to test that theory because the remaining ten miles was relatively flat along a ridge line. At which point, I took it up to my meager FTP of 283 and began to hammer it home. After about a mile or two, I looked back and my tri guy friend was well behind with the gap (at least 40 seconds) continuing to grow. There was a few turns and I couldn't drop him in an unfamiliar area so I did have to slow at parts until I was sure that he could see where he needed to turn. The last two miles is straight and pretty flat so I did take it up above 300 and opened up another few minute gap before I had to wait for him at the light right near the turn into my street.

So I go home and drop him off safely at my neighbors. The next day, my neighbor says to me that "I heard you couldn't keep up with X" on the flats. he was bummed that he could not take you on the hills because his bike was set up all wrong."

Moral: No good deed goes unpunished

daveryanwyoming

I had a similar experience earlier this spring that really drove home the way the PM tells the truth and a lot of folks have no idea how they're actually pacing. I met a friend for what we'd both planned as a moderately long SST ride. I made it clear that the goal was to ride Tempo or above for the whole ride and I wasn't interested in a social cruise and he was on board. We agreed that we both needed some longer SST miles and if our pace didn't match we'd go our own ways rather than suffer or go easy just to ride together. I spun into town and he'd brought along another guy who he described as being strong and in tune with the plan.

Anyway we rolled easily out of town which seemed o.k. as a bit more warmup before we settled into SST pacing. About four miles out of town we hit the first hill, a few hundred feet of moderate climbing and the third guy goes to the front and just about kills us. I look down and see I'm doing 330 watts to sit on his wheel. It's not crazy hard, but definitely above SST for me so I just sat on his wheel and thought, 'damn this guy is strong if he's just pacing SST.' I also hear my buddy breathing like a freight train to stay with us and I'm thinking this isn't a great way to start a four plus hour SST ride but we're all hanging so I figure there's time to settle down a bit on the flats.

At the top of the hill the strong guy pulls aside and I roll to the front and settle into a comfy 230 watt SST pace. I glance under my arm and see my friend on my wheel and just settle into pacing. A few minutes later I glance back and I'm all alone with two guys sitting up and talking a long way back. I figured they'd opted for a social ride and I finished my ride alone and got a really nice SST session.

I talked to my buddy that evening and it turns out he was comfortably on my wheel when he noticed his friend had fallen off and decided to go back for him. The third guy was pissed off and complained that he liked a "decent warmup" and that he didn't expect to get hammered at the start of a long ride. He had absolutely no clue that the hardest five minutes of the day was when we had to hang on his wheel up that first climb. I'd backed off the pace by a full 100 watts compared to what he was laying down (and he's a big guy so I expect he was going even harder than us on the climb) but he was cooked from jamming up the first climb. In his eyes we just rocketed off on the flats, but the PM tells a really different story.

It was a good reminder of how folks can get a really distorted picture of pacing without objective feedback. This guy has ridden for many years and I'm sure he's accustomed to suffering on climbs so he figured that's just the way climbs feel. But he was killing himself and us as well and then had nothing left when we settled into a much more reasonable pace. I'm sure he still doesn't get it but I compared power files with my buddy and sure enough we both saw the same thing, a comfortable roll out of town, a killer VO2 Max effort up the hill, settling into Tempo on the flats and then the third guy blew and was pissed off because we didn't "get enough warm up".

Definitely an eye opener about the honesty of a PM and learning to pace.

-Dave

jD_Empath

I wonder how much time you would have got on him if you didn't wait at the tops of the hills. Climbing gains make big gaps!

As far as keeping up on the flats, who knows... unless you are riding side-by-side the entire time then it's a matter of drafting and pulling. Maybe he had some good 4-minute power..whatever.

In my experience the best riders tend to understate their abilities. When you get to know them then they might start telling stories about great race wins but in general they don't really shoot their mouths off. I figure that a great racer knows as well as anyone that there is always someone faster. People who brag a lot...I figure it's just a lot of hot air.

My racing mentor was a state champ in one of the big western states. It takes a lot to do that! He told me many stories about winning races by just riding away from them at the first hill and then going it alone for the rest of the race. One time he did this in a 100-mile race and was expecting the same outcome when some guy came along and passed him like he was hardly moving. He figured it was just some local guy out for a 5 mile hammer session or something and forgot about the guy.

When he crossed the line he expected to get 1st place, but he was told that he got 2nd place. The guy who passed him was Greg LeMond. Greg had done to him what he was used to doing to people.


There is always someone to kick your butt.