Back in the Saddle

Posted on Apr 21st, 2010 | 10 comments
Back in the Saddle

I got a new ACL 5 and a half months ago. I was pretty intimidated about the surgery and recovery time, because most things I read about it made it sound like the end of life as we know it….well, it wasn’t! Actually, it was a great winter :)

Having been without the ACL for 2 years before getting it fixed, and being almost 100% back to normal now, I have to say the surgery and rebuilding was in fact a very good and rather enjoyable experience, nothing like what I was worried it might be. The recovery months flew by, and the time I spent in the gym rehabbing my leg also allowed me to do lots of pullups and upper body training. I started climbing on my wall about 2 months ago and then at the crags in late March, feeling the good effects of all the gym training. It’s kind of funny, because when I injure my legs, I always climb better as a result. When I can’t run around and jump and ski and play, I end up training for upper body strength, so in a way I’m always a little bit happy when I have a leg injury to fix. That probably sounds weird. :)

Skydiving and base jumping were the real intimidating things to start back into, with landings that could tweak a newly healed knee. I have heard so many scary stories about people re-tearing their graft after months of recovery, that I have been more than a little paranoid of reinjury. But at a certain point, you feel ready, although pretty nervous.

back in the saddle from steph davis on Vimeo.

I started skydiving three weeks ago with a trip to Eloy, Arizona. It felt so good to fly!

And finally, base jumping last week. Landing after a base jump in Moab, where you always have a no-wind landing, is one of the most unpredictable, potentially impactful/tweaky things I do, so it was definitely the last thing to come in my timeline of resuming what I like to do. The first cliff jump after 5 and 1/2 months off was pretty scary, with the landing more than a little intimidating. Once I got that one out of the way, it’s been so much fun jumping with my friends in Moab again. I did miss being in the air.

another Moab morning from steph davis on Vimeo.

It feels great to start to understand that I can really trust my knee now –it also makes me see how much it was actually holding me back for the last couple of years, though I didn’t realize, or maybe acknowledge, it. I climbed Concepcion, a hard desert crack, two months after I first tore my ACL (I didn’t know it was torn until last July, I just figured it was a sprain or something for a long time), but there were many specific movements that I used to stop myself from making with that leg for the last two years. I was constantly guarding it, without always being conscious of it. On steep routes, my left knee was always threatening to sproing inside out when I was toeing in with my leg stretched out, so I didn’t use my left leg the way you need to on sport routes, and hiking around on shifting talus required a lot of concentration and compensation from the right leg. But thanks to all that guarding, there was nothing else wrong inside my knee, despite two years of doing all the things I do without an ACL, which apparently can often lead to other knee damage. Because I was used to working around it, I didn’t realize how much it was affecting my movements until now that it’s fixed.

Every day is very exciting right now, as I start to realize just how well my leg works again :) What a miracle of modern science, that they can make a new ligament out of bits of hamstring, and put it back into a knee! As always, I feel pretty lucky to be living in this time and place.

  • Scott

    Did you recover the 5.10 canopy and your gear or did you get all new kit made?

  • Steph Davis

    nope, that gear was never to be found again. since it takes many months to have new base gear built, it was extremely perfect timing….i’m getting all my new gear now, just as i’m starting to jump again. and even used the opportunity to change to more lightweight gear for my wingsuit setup! funny enough, it couldn’t have worked out better!

  • Katie

    Hi Steph,

    Congrats on getting back in the sky!
    My circumstances have been very different as they have not been medically-driven, but the last several months have been an exercise in purposely abstaining from things like climbing and jumping. I’ve had only a couple weekends at the dz in the last few months on account of other demands on my life (and dealing with health insurance…we all know how much fun THAT can be). I sometimes have a hard time with that even though I know it’s a product of my own choices. Do you ever just get really down when you have to wait? How do you handle that?

    -Katie

  • http://russ-stein.com Russ

    Hey thanks for the vid. The other day I passed through Moab on my way to Denver for a half marathon and I tried to find the place you were talking about in this post–http://www.highinfatuation.com/blog/why-we-love-the-tombstone/

    It took me a few tries to figure it out. I asked the ATV and 4-wheeler guys where “the Tombstones” were, but they had no clue. Eventually I was just like, “Well it’s gotta be those cliffs, cuz they look like Tombstones,” so I parked in that lot in the video and walked up the trail that goes around behind them.

    I was never really sure though because I didn’t see how there’d be enough of an LZ with those boulder fields, bramble, and the river, even for veteran BASE jumpers. I’ve never seen much BASE, so it just didn’t compute.

    Now I get it. I was in the right place. I wasn’t able to get all the way up because of that “very exposed fourth-class move” though. If I had to do it it looked like there were a few different ways up there. But since I was by myself and had to get back on the road I punted and scrambled down the narrow canyon that forms the side of the big Tombstone to get a view.

    It was a nice hike anyhow. Thanks.

  • Steph Davis

    :) Glad you liked the hike Russ!! Yes, base landing areas are way different than giant skydiving fields…..
    Katie, I really don’t get down when I can’t do a particular thing, because there are always so many other things to do. It seems like a good opportunity to focus on the things I can do, especially because the hard part (the focus part) is already done for me, since what I can do is narrowed down. Like I said, I had a great winter during my ACL recovery, and got so much stuff done, as well as a lot of climbing training. It always seems like there’s never enough time to do everything. When you cut out certain things, you have more time to do all the other things. And then you appreciate everything even more when it’s time to go back to it. I think this is just part of the natural flow of life, and it’s a very good thing.

  • Roel

    Hey Steph,

    Nice post, Could you tell me what music we’re listening to in the videos?

    Cheers

  • Steph Davis

    Thanks Roel. (I usually list the music at the vimeo site, if you go directly there to the links.) The first clip (made by Mario Richard) has Heroin from the Velvet Underground. The second clip is un coup d’œil dans le métro by MC Solaar.

  • Roel

    Thanks Steph, I had a look on the vimeo site, but must have missed it. I thought it was Velvet Underground, just didn’t recognise the song.

    Have a nice day!

  • James

    Fancy videos, Steph! Glad you rocked your recovery and made the best of it. I’ve had knee surgeries myself (5, inc. both ACLs), so I just wanted to share my support!

    And more generally, thanks for your blog as well,

    -James

  • Andy

    Hi Steph,
    I really like the first video, there seems to have been a awful lot of love put into it ;-)
    Andy

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