This holiday season brought me a nice little setback as I was getting ready to blast into 2019. An MRI showed a full thickness/near-full thickness tear of distal medial collateral ligament (MCL). I was lucky to only tear that one, and not any others, which is usually what happens. I did a similar thing back in 2015 when I tore my PCL and only my PCL which I guess is pretty unheard of.
After consulting a few different physical therapists, sports docs, and orthopedic doctors to gather opinions, we decided to do a more conservative treatment and let it heal on it's own. As of now we are 3 weeks in to the injury, so will continue resting and bracing it, add in some treatments, and then start physical therapy a few weeks after that. No exact timeline but I'm hoping to be back on the bike soon, and plan to do so before the first UCI World Cup of 2019! The 2019 UCI World Cup season starts off in Japan in April, back in Hiroshima once again.
In the meantime, you will find me hanging out with my family, knitting a blanket or two, and trying to think of other things that people do in life when they don't ride bikes. All ideas are welcome, I didn't realize how terrible I am at thinking of things to do!