My Grafton to Inverell cancelled!! / Shoulder issues

The decision has been made, I won't do the 2008 Grafton to Inverell Classic. Sadly, I called my team mate, Aaron, to give him the bad news. Yes, bad news they are as I have been planning to do this race for a couple of years now and had talked him into it.

He didn't take it too badly, in fact he told me he hasn't done the necessary training for it either and was happy to give it a miss. That makes one of us... It made me feel a little better but not completely satisfied with the decision... Yes, complicated!

When I first learned of this classic race, 3 or 4 years ago, it became the subject of many conversations with John Flynn during our training rides. He said that, with the right training I could do well on the 225 km race but also said that if I wanted to do it, I should do it as soon as possible. His reasoning been, it was only going to get tougher as I got older.

Scary but true! Three or four years later and I am postponing it again... As I wrote before, I could do it just for the experience. I could do it to learn about the course, learn how my body would take such a long race, learn about the logistics and find out if my training was of any help.

Good reasons, then came the collision with the van and I am off the bike... The result of the incident was a badly injured shoulder and a deeply bruised leg (I can't see the bruise but it hurts like h..l). Sure I could ride a bike and I did it for a week, perhaps even race with an injured shoulder but, for my surprise, my shoulder and leg got worst in the second week.

Having had a similar injury on my other shoulder four years ago, I know how long it might take to have it back to normal. Firstly, it is a hard injury to treat and secondly, I do a lot of lifting in my job... Well, not for a while now!!! Last time, it was a MTB accident. It took me over 1 and 1/2 years to have my right shoulder back to normal . During that time I experimented with many different types of treatments, the final one been a heavy dose of cortisone, or steroid hormone, injected into the Bursa.

At the end, I think I just learned how to cope with pain. A good thing if you are a cyclist...

Great, but I am not interested in going through that again, this time I want to have it heeled as quick as possible. So far, I have seen 3 doctors, none of them a shoulder specialist and one of them been a vocational health practitioner. I have been given some anti-inflammatory, a few exercises, a referral for a physio and X-ray and Ultrasound requests for a possible Rotator Cuff tear... S..t!

The good news, no broken bones. Next step: X-rays and Ultrasound of left shoulder joint.

This Saturday, I will be a volunteer for the club's 100th year celebration race. I will take the bike and will do a few km to get the legs spinning... that's me in not training and not racing.