Board (1pt) Doria (0pt)
March 10, 2008 at 10:44 am | Doria | Uncategorized |
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I hit the board last Tuesday. It was kind of a freak accident. I was just warming up and doing some front hurdles. It was all pretty standard-the same thing that I do every single day. Tuesday, though, I was just a little more fatigued than usual. I could feel the lactic acid in my muscles, the dull ache in my back, and the general hazy tiredness well-known to MIT students. The combination of physical and mental exhaustion caused my knees to buckle at the bottom of my press. Here I am, a mass sitting on top of a loaded spring unable to move. As you can imagine, the spring unloaded tossing my body back up into the air. I didn’t have enough forward momentum, though, to get me out over the water, so I had to put my feet back on the board. My center of mass was right on the line coming up from the tip. As the board unloaded a second time, I was like the stick with a force being applied to one end. As the board started flipping me over, my shins and my feet had not yet traveled out over the water. As a result, I took a nice clip to the shins and slid down the board, getting cut up on the way, until I was tossed completely over onto my back in the water.
Needless to say, the smack was definitely a bit of a sting, but the sand paper on the board had left my shins and feet with board burn. Blood poured out and ran down my legs as I sat shivering on the deck. It just happened so fast that I didn’t really have time to take it all in. My legs were green and yellow and the cuts were a bright red.
The lifeguards started bandaging me up and the trainers checked out my legs to make sure there were no breaks. Thankfully, everything was fine and I just needed some gauze and ice. The freak accident has kind of startled me, but I have spent the week building my confidence back up.
I leave for nationals tomorrow and the scabs are starting to heal on my legs. It seems that everything is going to work out fine. My skin is still on the board-I haven’t had time to scrub it off yet, but maybe next week. Stay tuned for the nationals update. I’m going to try to write to you everyday while I am gone so that you can follow the play by play and the emotional roller coaster that I am about to hop on. Wish me luck and stay tuned!
The News Office blog is currently featuring reports from MIT senior Doria Holbrook, above, who is chronicling her attempt to qualify for the U.S. Olympic diving trials in June.
Fernando Lizundia wrote:
March 11, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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Congratulations Doria! Good show and excellent result. Hope that you’ll do still better at the nationals.
By the way, are your shins healing properly? I can almost feel the pain just reading your blog entry. Ouch!
All my best!
Aurrera beti!