It has been a long journey with my collarbone and finally it has come to an end! I am almost fully recovered and I could do my first race yesterday, since I crashed 13 weeks ago! I really did not think it was going to take this long!!
It felt really good to come back to South Africa 1,5 month ago and a bit cool to go in the lane for South Africans instead of foreigners at the customsJ. A week or so after I arrived I saw my physio in Stellenbosch, Pierre Kruger, he is the best physio I know and has helped me with lots of problems in the passed. He just wanted to see an x-ray before we started treatments. So 8 weeks after the crash I went for an x-ray that showed that the bones had still not started to knit… Pierre recommended me to see a specialist regarding an operation, I could not believe it, that I was starting to think about operation AGAIN! This collarbone really started to irritate me now… I made the decision not to see a specialist and let it heal on its own, so another few weeks of waiting.
I saw Pierre again this week and I have full movement and am relatively strong and everything looks good. So I finally, after 13 weeks, got the go ahead I have been waiting for to race again and also to start doing some mountainbiking!
So yesterday I did my first race!! I felt a bit uncomfortable in the bunch at first but after a few kilometres it felt much better. It was the last leg of the Spring league and the girls started with the vets and masters. There were a few attacks in the beginning and I was in a 3 man break for a bit but we got caught. At about 15km into the race there were more attacks and a group of 10-13 got away, I was not there but realised in time that it might be the break of the day, I attacked and bridged over to them. Luckily I did cause we stayed away till the finish. We all worked hard to stay away so it was perfect training for me and I was happy to be able to stay with them and also work in the group and not just sit. It also meant that I won the ladies race by about 5 minutes.
The most important was not to win the race but to feel that I was back in form and that I really enjoyed racing again. Now I feel eager to race more and luckily we are in the beginning of the summer so there will be lots of races to do from now on.
After the race I was called for a doping test, I have never done a doping test at such a small race! I think that is a great thing to see, that they are starting to do more tests even at a lower level of racing!