August 31, 2009 (Marquette, MI) – Hey everyone, I am back in Marquette after quite a bit of hopping around. For the past month I have been dealing with the fact that my body seems to be falling apart. Following our last training camp, I developed a nasty case of shins splints. I was headed back to VT for a wedding, so I set up an appointment with the doc who did my compartment surgery last year. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a recurrence. We decided it was just shin splints (which is excellent news in the big scheme of things) and that my legs are actually made out of glass.

Nevertheless, due to the shins splints, I was doing a lot of double poling and managed to hurt my elbow. This left me with swimming. I hate swimming, but was blessed with some unusually warm summer weather. I convinced my younger brother Sten to take a kayak around a local lake with me while I swam. I worked my way up to being able to swim (or as my brother called it “not drown”) for a solid hour. Not a bad way to spend a 90 degree afternoon!

Yesterday, I arrived back in Marquette and went for my first short, pain free run, which was encouraging. My elbow also seems to be healing, which is good as we have a training camp starting in Hayward next Wednesday. I have to thank Donna Smyers, Pepa Mildfh, and Brian Huber for helping me out with my legs. I should also add that prior to my elbow mishap I had been doing some solid work on our new Concept 2 double pole machine. It works surprisingly well and is an excellent alternative in central Vermont to the somewhat suspect roller skiing. In fact, I have to drive nearly an hour for a paved road which can sustain skiing. If you have the same problem, I highly recommend checking out the Concept 2 machine. Hope everyone is having a solid summer as we are still waiting on ours to start here in Marquette.