Snowboarding
Last January, I was playing football with some friends when I dove for a long reception. I caught the ball, just barely keeping my feet in bounds, but my right leg was dragging out to my side with my leg fully extended and my knee locked. As one of my friends went to defend me, he landed on top of my extended right leg, and the lower half of my leg snapped outwards from my body. I felt a snap and heard a loud cracking noise and knew something had been severely damaged. Turns out I tore my MCL, the medial collateral ligament, which is one of the major ligaments that connects the femur to the tibia – basically you need it to walk.
I was bound to a couch for two weeks, barely able to walk even while icing and bracing the injury. I couldn’t drive, because I needed to be able to bend my right leg to drive, and that definitely wasn’t happening. I didn’t have health insurance, so the surgery that was necessary wasn’t a feasible option. I just decided to self medicate and take it easy on my leg. A week later I got a job testing video games full time – that certainly didn’t require much movement! Before my injury, I was working out constantly, surfing a lot, running on the beach, lifting weights, and getting in pretty decent shape. It was easy in San Diego, where there are hundreds if not thousands of people exercising along the coast line at any given moment. When I injured my knee, I was completely removed from all physical activity for quite some time (except for a few beach volleyball games). Since last January, I haven’t run or exercised my lower body at all, in fear that I might re-injure my MCL. However, when the opportunity arose to go snowboarding at Whitetail with some friends, I accepted without hesitation. Granted I still have knee pain every once in a while (especially after hard nights at work), I figured the worst case scenario is that I go snowboarding and if my knee starts to flare up, just sit out the rest of the day.
NOT THE CASE! Snowboarding was amazing. I just wrapped my knee up, took a couple Tylenol and shredded the mountain up. It felt so good to get back on the slopes, after 2 years without any sort of snow sports. I bought a board and some boots from an old friend and took to the mountain with no reservations. I forgot how dearly in love with the sport of snowboarding I am. There were 5 of us from Fogo that went, a few gauchos and a few servers. Two of them had never been snowboarding before, so after they fell pretty much the whole way down the bunny slopes, we persuaded them to take lessons so they would have more fun. One of the guys was pretty good so we went on the black diamonds and double blacks together, however I did spent a majority of the day boarding by myself because I don’t like to be held back or have to wait for anybody. There were no lift lines as school has just started for everyone, it was the middle of the week, and the weather was perfect. It started snowing around 3pm and by dinnertime there was a thick fresh layer of powder on the whole mountain. Made night boarding so much more fun.
I was sore for 3 days after getting off the mountain. Made me realize how insanely out of shape I am. But I’m better now, recharged, and ready to hit the mountain again! So we’re all going again on Tuesday. An expensive habit yes, but worth it?
Absolutely.
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