MCL sprain

At no point on any wave on Saturday was I in any kind of control on Doc III. Left, right, didn't matter. The board felt squirrelly and fast and I'm starting to think I'm not good enough. To compound it all, I was trying to bring the board under me on a right after a bottom turn when the wave jacked up and the board started sliding and pitching me. I couldn't even count on my honed wipe-out skills. My front left foot remained planted on the board as it cartwheeled and started hyper-extending my knee. I was tumbling with the thought, "I am seriously going to get hurt here." I managed to disentangle my leg from the board and hobble into shore. Walking was manageable, but started tweaking out if I rotated the bottom half of my leg.

Great. So now I had to fake walk all day while my parents came for a visit. (They approve of my surfing even less than they approved of my white boyfriend in college.) The first part of the day was fine, and my Dr. Brother, who was also visiting, assured me that if I wasn't in agonizing pain and could walk it was probably just a MCL sprain. He had one while snowboarding a couple years ago. I asked him how long it took to recover. "Fully? Two months." What?! Great.

So, dim sum in Monterey Hills was good . What sucked was discovering that sitting still all day caused my knee to get stiff which caused more pain when I started walking. The day's plan was to drive around looking at neighborhoods with Dr. Brother in preparation for his move out there in the summer when he starts his vascular fellowship. That means me sitting, driving everybody in my car. By the end of the day, I couldn't fake walk from the parking garage to the crab place at Redondo for dinner. I had to limp walk and confess.

"You have to do things right. When you have kids to support you won't do such things."

Is that really true? The majority of my surfer friends are parents who can't wait to throw their kids into the water. I also don't think I did anything particularly stupid. I just have a new board I don't know how to ride. Unfortunately, though, my dad believes surfing in general is dangerous and stupid, so there is no point for debate.

I feel like the MCL sprain has actually given me a new appreciation for preventative training. I'm glad I started going to the gym to improve my cardio-vascular system and build some muscle mass. I believe in the positive effects of yoga to strengthen my core muscles. But surfing is not for any of that. It's just for me. So, will I end up "doing things right" like my dad lectures?