At Home and on a Bike Already

Friday 08 February 2008

Champion Meares healing slowly and starting to ride

Anna Meares provided a update to her recovery by sending an email earlier in this week. The Australian is now at home in Adelaide and despite spending a lot of time on the couch, she's returned to training! In this unique insight, Anna outlined the 'afterpain' of scrubbing-out track burns and the ingenuity to get her training again in just a couple of weeks.

The problem for Meares with simply jumping onto a stationary "turbo" / "ergo" indoor training set up was the amount of pressure it would put onto her neck. A little lateral thinking from the mechanics and coaches at the AIS resulted in the addition of a simple frame to her training area. Now, she can sit upright on her bike, lean on the (portable clothes rack) and spin her legs. 

Meares tells that "I could only do 1-2 minutes before I got dizzy and had to stop. Later that day I did two lots of 5 minutes just fine and today (Sunday) I easily did 15 minutes. I have to say as sad as it may sound it was very exciting for me to even do the 1-2 minutes first up."

Anna has been working with the physio and they are both hopeful that her arm will be just about back to normal soon. She sent some pictures of the burns she suffered to her face as a result of sliding along the track. They are now just about healed and almost unnoticeable. The secret here was even more pain - a burn contains dirt and grit. Whilst in the hospital and despite being anaesthetised, the only way to clean them out was to scrub them. "To put it politely it hurt like hell," she noted. The pictures were taken by sister, Kerrie, in the ambulance which took Anna from the velodrome in LA to the hospital. There would have been more pictures, but their camera battery went flat!

Other aspects of her recovery are going well. She is now able to walk unaided and will be undergoing regular scans to monitor the injuries to her neck.

Anna's husband and family have rallied around to help her with basic household chores and even caring for the garden. They've made sure her spirits are kept high too, with some laughs along the way. She appreciates everything they've done so far whilst she's been trying to relax and recover. (We suspect she won't be letting them pamper her for long! - Ed)

Anna is grateful for the support she has received from others too. "I want to say a very big thank you to everyone who has sent get well cards, flowers and messages to me. They really have made a very big impact on me and kept me smiling and positive knowing so many people are behind me."
 

WomensCycling.net sends Anna our best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

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