A summer without Rollerskiing!
By:  Megan McTavish   (2010/08/23)

This summer, however, I haven’t touched my rollerskis!

Last summer and fall, as you may have read, I had some problems while rollerskiing. I dislocated my shoulder badly twice within 6 weeks. Both of these times, I was rollerskiing and both times I had to get someone to put it back in for me (ie. it wouldn’t go back in by itself). After much thought and discussion, I decided to bite the bullet and get the surgery to tighten it up and hopefully remove the high risk of continued problems.

I had the surgery in April. At first, all I could do was walk and water run, but fairly quickly I could return to running and I have kept adding activities throughout the summer. The one thing I have continued to avoid though, is rollerskiing. The reason for this is that my surgeon told me avoid activities that could result in falling for the first six months after surgery. Although I have probably only fallen on rollerskis a handful of times throughout my skiing career, last year I fell twice and hurt myself both times so I decided not to tempt fate this summer!

Me running earlier this summer

So, while the rest of my teammates were rollerskiing, I decided that I would RUN! In high school I raced track and cross country fairly seriously and I thought it would be fun to make a bit of a return to that activity. In fact, this fall I am planning a reunion of sorts with some of my old running teammates at a half marathon in Toronto.

Racing in High School (inside, front)

Me (the scarecrow) and my running buddies ready for a road race in High School

I have really enjoyed returning to the track and consistently doing some fast running this summer. Although I haven’t done any racing yet...my running has been feeling good and it will be fun to test things out a bit this fall. I am also enjoying the break from rolllerskiing and the opportunity to change things up a bit.  Overall, I think running is a great mode of training for skiing.  Its not as specific as rollerskiing but it is a really simple way of getting in a great aerobic workout!