I was disappointed after not being able to race in Tahoe but I was also ok with it. Last Monday I hiked for 90 minutes in Mill Valley, CA. Tuesday I ran with my buddy Paul. He wanted to run 1 hour with 30 minutes of Tempo. It felt really easy to me. Wednesday after driving home from San Francisco Tuesday night, I ran with my friend Andrew for an easy 40 minutes. My body felt great, all things were feeling good.
Thursday after a 2 hour meeting I rushed to the beach. I had about an hour before I had to start on dinner. I stopped at a familiar beach, grabbed my paddle board and headed out into the water. The water is still so nice that it was just awesome to be in the water. Once I started heading out I noticed the waves were quite strong with lots of water behind them. I'm never scared of surf so instead of minding the waves I started paddling out. As I got to the break point of the surf I noticed a sizeable wave heading my way. (later reports the Surf was head high). I hesitated and that was the mistake of the week. The wave picked me up turned me around and in doing so through my paddle directly into the back of my head. Then the wave flipped me over the falls. I tumbled for a bit, shooting pain in my head and then it became calm. My head was on fire. I decided to head in to check to see if I was bleeding. I sat on the beach for a bit then headed home. The rest of the night and the first part of Friday I was dizzy and sick to my stomach. Not throwing up or anything just felt sick.
Friday at 2pm I decided why not and headed to the Time Trial. The start is always fast and a bit chaotic. It's downhill on grass with low hanging trees. The start is everyone kids and adults together. I decided to start at the back behind the kids and ease into the run. That was perfect. Two adults charged ahead and I just sat and watch our son at the front of the pack. After 1 mile I had eased pass the two adults and was feeling ok. I was tentative on my foot plants but to this point the run was mostly up hill. As soon as we hit the big screaming downhill things changed. I was getting dizzy and my lower back was killing me. I carried on. At the bottom we turned to go back up and it all seemed ok again. The finish is down the big hill one more time and then a hard right up hill on grass for 300 meters. As I got to the bottom of the hill one of the men passed me. I thought no problem I've been going easy I can take him on the way up. And then my legs stopped working. I felt really awkward as I started pushing. You can tell in the picture that there is no lean in my running. I should be leaning into that hill. The guy finished 10 feet in front of me. Bummed but no issues.
Saturday I woke up and couldn't move without searing pain in my back and in my head. I called for a massage and it seemed to work but the low back pain was still there on Sunday. Marco and I went to the pool to work on his stroke and I was again really dizzy in the water.
Monday I went to the back doctor. Told him my story. He said let me look at your eyes. A 1 minute later he said, You had a concussion. Your left eye is still jumping.
I wouldn't change the trip to the ocean or the 5K for anything. Maybe I would have checked the surf and chosen and easier reef entry rather than a beach entry but other than that I loved this experience. It will all correct itself soon enough and I'll be back to playing hard again.
It's a good life....
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