Chandra's Latest Update

December 5, 2008

While Devon is out representing team KershCrawf with such amazing career best results as 5th in a distance World Cup (WOO HOO!), I am holding down the fort here in Canmore where tenderly I care for my tenosynovitis and follow the recommendations of my Dream Team of care specialists. Keep reading and I'll introduce you to them. I don't know if I'll make it over to the World Cup sprints in Davos and Dusseldorf that are before Christmas, but I do know that the most important thing is to let this injury heal completely rather than drag it through my race season and beyond. I'm re-evaluating every week and hoping to join my team in Europe as soon as I can skate ski a couple hours pain-free. It's frustrating missing out on the race action after such a great 6 months of training but my main focus events for the season are yet to come. There is still a lot of tendon-healing time between World Champs in February in the Czech Republic and the World Cups in Whistler, and I'm quite certain that all the upper body workouts I'm doing coupled with the rest will only help me down the road.

The first place this road leads is to recovery. Tenosynovitis is the inflammation of the sheath that surrounds a tendon and at the moment I have it in my right lateral ankle. What's all this, you ask? Some activites can cause sufficient strain to injure a tendon on a microscopic scale and then do more injury before the tendon heals. If you continue the injurious activity, you will gradually accumulate these micro-injuries. When enough injury accumulates, you'll feel pain. When kind of injury that comes on slowly with time and persists is a chronic injury; acute tendon injuries are sudden tears that cause immediate pain and obvious symptoms. Mine is chronic (a word that belies my belief that for me this is an extremely temporary condition!) Tendon injuries often require patience and careful rehabilitation because tendons heal more slowly than muscles do.

In the prevention category all I can reccomend is making sure your orthotics aren't worn out, making sure you are rotating two pairs of runners at once rather than running one pair at a time until they die, not training in pursuit or combi boots, and taking care of muscles that are getting super-tight.

On the National Ski team we are lucky enough to have quite the array of specialists available to keep us going. Between Dave Wood, Arild Monsen and Eric DeNys everyone gets the coaching they need and go above and beyond the call of duty to help us train and perform our best. The coaches work with the doctors to coordinate the key resources which are different for each individual athlete. Although I see some different massage therapists, acupuncturists and specialists in myofascial release (please release the facists in my lower legs!), the care I get is always complimentary thanks to the quarterback, our team doctor Dr. Willem Meeuwisse, MD, PhD. How he tends to all the various issues on our team as well as other teams, works in his clinic, raises a family, works out all the time, researches and publishes and still maintain his calm disposition is a wonder to me.

Dr. Meeuwisse is a physician and proffesor with a clinical practice specializing in sport medicine. His research field is the epidemiology of sport injury; specifically injury risk assessment and prevention.

My assesments and treatments are administered by Susan Massitti BPE, MSc (PT) who began working with our team in 2005. An Olympian herself in long-track speedskating in Nagano 1998, a physiotherapy treatment with Susan fluidly incorporates anything from advanced biomechanics, active release and IMS needling to traditional Chinese medicine such as fire cupping. You may have seen her shock of curly red hair on cbc this summer as she was an incredible support to the gymnasts, particularly Kyle Shewfelt who came back from two broken legs 10 months before the Beijing Games. A mother of two amazing little boys who play hockey and practice their instruments when not riding their unicycles off jumps, her intensity and bright spirit make her awesome to work with.

Beckie Scott chatting with friend and fellow Vermillion native, Susan Massitti on a training day at the 2006 Olymps.

The Dream Team is well stocked with former speed skaters, including that National Team's strength coach. At every stage in injury prevention and healing Matt Jordan, MSc., CSCS, is there with the right strength and flexibility exercises worked into our programs to get back on track. These reccomendations are administered with a healthy dose of perspective. A truly great and dedicated coach, Matt cares about his athletes and on weekly visits to workout with us in Canmore he brings along his keen awareness of what it takes to succeed from all his great work with super-skaters like Jeremy Wotherspoon, Clara Hughes, Cindy Klassen and Kristina Groves as well as athletes from tons of other sports.

Check Matt out at www.jordanstrength.com and if you're in Calgary and like Indian food try the place he took a bunch of us skiers for a delicious and extremely memorable meal... www.nawabindiancuisine.ca

Matt, Susan and Dr. Meeuwisse all work closely with Dr. Cal Botterill, PhD. The Winnipeg, Manitboa recently retired prof has psyched my mind since 2005, seen our team through the most tempestuous times and helped Devon and I a great deal. His advice made all the difference in my prep for the 2006 games and his committment to the athletes is so unfaltering it's very moving. We work mostly on foundational psychology and find that maintaining perspective by being myself and loving what I do is the simple but effective way to unleash my best performances.

Cal's wife Doreen was an Olympian in speed skating (can't get enough of these speed skaters, I tell ya!), his daughter Jennifer has been on the Canadian Gold Medal winning team the past two Olympics and his son Jason played in the NHL. To get you started here are a few recent posts from Cal on the CBC website that can be used in any aspect of life, not just hockey. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/ourgame/optimizing_life_in_hockey/

Thanks for tuning in and for all the concern and advice that has been offered. Best Advice Award has been awarded by me to my mom's friend Norma Lendi who can't say enough good things about slathering some cod liver oil on the injury and wrapping it in flanel. I'm hoping to do one better by treating it with an actual whole cod fish, so if you happen to have one lying around please mail it to me c/o Cross Country Canada.

Cheers,

Chandra