Postings for november 2009 | Aksel Lund Svindal
Lake Louise
Arrived at Lake Louise yesterday. This is where I won my first World- Cup race, so defiantly a place that brings back good memories. I hoped to come here 100% prepared and in a great shape this year, but that’s not happening. I still have to be careful with my leg and 4/5 weeks without skiing just before the season kicks off is not the way to go. Doesn’t feel right travelling all around the world all summer to find good snow, and when winter finally got here I couldn’t ski. The injury happened when I crashed in Saas Fee a week before the race in Sölden. I crashed in GS training. Looking back now I was a little stressed the weeks before the opening in Sölden. I had lots of skis to test and really wanted to be 100% ready for Sölden. I was risking too much and skied too many runs. More risk + more runs = not very smart. The preparation had been good and I felt I was very close to everything being perfect going into the season. We were struggling to find the best snow for GS training. But the first race in Sölden is early, and the season in whole is much more important. But much easier to be cool about that now than when the first race is approaching fast. Looking back now doing the race in Sölden was also a mistake. But you learn as you go. It’s like Didier Cuche said to me the other day; “This close to the season I can’t go 100% in training. It’s like I don’t want to risk too much”. I’ll do the first training here in Lake Louise tomorrow. Take it a little easy and see what the leg feels like.
Wildlife
On my way to breakfast this morning I almost tripped over this little guy taking a nap under the “Christmas three”.
Ski boots
Trying to figure out how much stress my leg can take and making sure it’s used to the stress it gets from the skiboots. So today at the gym I did all the workout in the boots. Jumping around, sideways, down stairs… Anything that will give the leg stress that you might get skiing. Tomorrow I’ll try some downhill.
High Tech
Getting some work done on my leg by Trond. We use a machine that sends shockwaves into the tissue to get better circulation and hopefully a faster healing process. It’s a pretty new technology. We’re used it for a few years and were amongst the first to try it. Results have been pretty good on everything from tight muscles in the back to jumpers knee.
First step
Cruised around today with physio Trond and coach Franz. Good to be back on skis and hang out with my team again. But best of all; the injury felt much better. I was taking it easy step by step, and I will be careful the next week so it doesn’t get worse, but all in all it went better than I expected. And I’m a pretty optimistic guy, some have said I should wait longer before I even put my boots on. Happy about that! But sorry to hear about Resi Stiegler getting injured again. No one deserves to get injured, but she really didn’t deserve it. She was just getting back into it after coming back from injuries.