My ATR journey

So my achilles tale actually begins with a small (slightly unrelated) backstory.

I’m in my second semester of my senior year at Bradley University.  I’m on the track team here, and spring is always super busy, being in-season and all.  Unfortunately, our first outdoor meet happened to be scheduled during our spring break, which was pretty annoying in the first place.  I had never been on a spring break trip before, and this was the first year I actually had the money available and a destination to go to.  But, being the loyal student athlete I am, I was on that bus to Tulsa at 5:45am right smack dab in the middle of spring break.

The 10 hour drive started out alright (after I got over my massive st. patrick’s day hangover) and soon enough we pulled into beautiful Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The weather that wednesday was gorgeous, almost 80 degrees, as opposed to the 50’s in Peoria.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t last, and we were stuck in 50’s and low 60’s the rest of the week.  And did I mention rain?

Saturday was the day of our actual meet.  Cold, cloudy, and rainy.  This made me particularly bitter because the main reason we came all the way out to Oklahoma was for better, warmer weather than the normal chilly SIU meet.  Anyhow, getting to the point, despite the day being so cruddy, I was doing surprisingly well in my first event, the Triple Jump.  I was scheduled for 4 events that day, TJ, 4×100, and the 100 & 200 dashes.  My warm up was was decent, and I had been 3 jumps into compitition before the incident.  I was the first jumper to go in finals, and as I was on the runway getting ready for my takeoff.  I took one small jump to push off of and thats when I felt the snap, and heard (along with everyone else in a 100 feet radius) the thunderous “crack!”

Cue waterworks.  I’m not normally a crybaby, but I was really balling.  I truely have to thank the official who reached me first: I wrapped my arms around him and didn’t let go until after he carried me over to the bench.  There wasn’t necessarily a lot of pain, but the fear I had of what happened was just that great.  They carted me off the field, and by that point was was reduced to sniffles.

After that, the U of Tulsa trainer took a look at it and confirmed my worst fear, torn achilles.  At that point we didn’t know how bad, and after the doctor got there, all we could do is splint it and wait til we got back to Peoria.

I’m still playing the what-if game, sometimes blaming my injury on the trip.  Like, “If I’d only gone to Florida!” but I know it’s just a freak thing that happened and I was only doing what I was supposed to do.  So, as my dad says, just chalk it up to a new life experience. :o)

Shout out to Katie, who sat with me in the training room for hours waiting for the doc, and Vikki B.  who was my stand-in mom for the day… Thanks!