Unreal

​How to accept your reality when ‘real’ seems so unreal?

On a mission

​For a while now I have tried to accept my situation. Or to be more specific I have tried for the past 6 weeks. It’s 6 weeks ago I crashed, made a hole in my elbow and picked up a nasty infection. The skin healed quick, the wound took some weeks and for the last, still fighting. My immune system has been on a big mission. Actually, my body is still shipping out stones and pus of my scar. I try to joke about it - I mean my body is just weight optimizing, right? 

​But when stones etc. make it to the surface of my scar, I can’t help but feel pain inside of me. I say a lot of bad words to myself, feeling it so unfair. Why me? Why did I have to crash so unfortunate just before a big block of important races? 
And it’s not like xco racing is forgiven. I mean I cannot hide. Let’s say I’m at 80% at the moment it’s like the difference of being 5th or 50th. It feels so strange out there. In every race I did, while my body has been fighting, I have pushed myself to the limit, just in Val di Sole my avg heart rate was 183 but I was still riding so slow, finishing 52. My body simply couldn’t do more. 

But it makes sense, that if the immune system is busy, they don’t care much about repairing the muscles.

Pieces of information

Not that it’s a big surprise for me that I’m not racing fast at the moment. I have felt a big impact since the crash. Mostly on my ability to recover. But it makes sense, that if the immune system is busy, they don’t care much about repairing the muscles. So my recovery processes have been going really slow (still isn’t normal yet), which have had consequences for my racing/training. My body’s ability to respond to my training has simply been so low. And that doesn’t make a strong world cup racer…(Not that it’s that simple). 

​For sure there are more to it, but this is where I have felt the biggest impact. This empty, slow Malene, who I’m very unfamiliar with. 
So why keep on racing, when you get smoked every weekend? 
Good question ;-) I try to look at it as a big challenge, trying to get most out of each race and ride the best I can. Around the rock, over those roots, right corner, left corner… It’s not the same to race in the back end of the field, but that doesn’t have to change my moral. And every race I have done since my crash has given me pieces of information about my recovery process I wouldn’t have known without. 

​This long injury was definitely not what I had in mind when I crashed back then, I felt my season was just started and I was so motivated to continue on that wave. I thought it would take some weeks and then I would be back on form. But it has been so different, and I never thought an infection could impact me this much. 

​And of course, I’m scared that people think I’m weak or I’m giving up.

​The plan is to line up on Sunday again, for the 6th round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup here in Lenzerheide. With the same mindset, just ride as good as possible from A to B. And if I feel more energy running in my muscles than last weekend, well, then it’s a success. I can’t really care about the number on the result list, I have to look at my own performance. 

​I rode up the rock garden in Val Di sole every lap fx, and after watching the replay I learned that many of the front girls made mistakes many times. That’s something to be proud of. 
My mind is so ready to go, I got the skills and the will, but my body/health, which is one the most important part of racing, has just not been on the same level. 

​It’s not that easy tho. I wish it was. Because of course, I care about getting smoked every Sunday at the moment. And of course, I’m scared that people think I’m weak or I’m giving up. But the truth is, that when I’m out there racing my absolute best, while the leaders still are more than 10 minutes ahead of me, it's so difficult. It takes so much courage, bravery and will from me to finish the race. And afterwards to see all the small positive notes. It takes tears and bad nights, but I do it, and I have actually been pretty positive througthout this whole thing, that can’t be weakness. Riding my best while not caring about what others might think of this slow version of Malene, can’t be weakness. 

I hope this unreal feeling of my reality will be over soon. 
In my last post, after Les Gets, I said I wanted to make the upcoming weekends a staircase. Lenzerheide is step 3. I cross my fingers that it will be another step in the rigth direction. I feel it's me against the clock, season 19' is soon to be over. 
And fyi I havn't accepted a slow Malene 

xoxo 
Malene