Blauwe Plekken

When training at a competitive wheel club, there is one thing to be expected more than anything else: You will leave with bruises. Lots, and lots, of bruises.

Repeating movements, especially new figures where the pressure of the wheel is somewhere you're not accustomed to, is a great reminder of how far you've come and how much further there is to go. I would often leave the club with all kinds of new welts, and then wake the following morning unable to move.

Ah, learning.

The most impressive booboo?

20 minutes after impact

Three days later

I know it doesn't look like much, but bear in mind, it is directly on the tibia and over an inch long. The impact was so strong that my shin wasn't sure if it should bleed or not and took a few minutes to think about it before deciding that, yes, blood seemed like the right response to such an assault on its person. If anything hits me in the shin now, the pain is so strong that it takes about a minute before I can walk again.

Now I wish I could say I was doing some kind of cool and terrifying D element of doom, but I was working on a pretty standard figure and one leg was a bit late, which led to me slipping which resulted in the above.

The moral of the story?

Invest in shin pads.