More BURNING Questions

How is Melissa recovering?

Many people have been emailing and calling wanting to know how my recovery is going. First of all, thank you to everyone for your caring, support, & encouragement. I do have good news. Initially, the recovery was pretty rough, very painful, and seemed to linger on without much progress. We thought for a while that my clavicle was not healing. Fortunately over the past 2 - 3 weeks it has felt so much better. I have been able to start running again and I have been doing my rehab exercises at the gym. I had a huge breakthrough today, which I believe is a result of my rehab and the massage therapy session I had last Thursday. Talk about a painful massage, that was no fault of my favorite massage therapist, Gary Kahl, just the reality of an injury. Nonetheless, the muscle work is vitally important to the healing process. Okay, so the breakthrough I experienced today was the ability to raise my arm over my head. My range of motion has increased dramatically in just a few days.

Will Melissa be ready for the 2008 games?

Several people have asked how this injury is going to affect my goal to compete in the Olympics in 2008. Well, that is an interesting question. We see professional athletes get injured in competition all too frequently and often times it is a few weeks or maybe a few months and they are back in competition shape. Before my two accidents over the past 12 months, I was already feeling like I had a lot of work to do to get into elite competition shape. As I had a lot of quiet time the past few months, I've had time to contemplate & re-evaluate my goals. For those of you who have read the timeless book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, you will recall where he talks about climbing the ladder leaning against a specific building only to get to the top realizing that you climbed to the top of the wrong building. As I considered the things that matter most to me in my life and the things I value most, it seemed that perhaps the Olympic games in 2008 is not the right pursuit at this point in my life. I love athletics. I love running. I love competing as a triathlete. I love the thrill of competition. This is part of who I am. I will always be active and compete in races. I will continue to set goals and strive to excel. I am a dreamer. I am a goal getter. I am big thinker. I am ambitious and sometimes called over-zelous. So I love the thrill of setting outrageous goals and striving to achieve them and ultimately accomplishing them. However, if I were to put my goals out on the table and someone told me I could only choose 1 goal for the rest of my life, honestly if would not be to win the Olympic gold. Although it is a noble and outstanding accomplishment. At this point, I will continue to set goals to compete at Nationals & World Championships. I definitely intend to compete in the Senior Olympics in my mature years. As I take this next year to fully recover and to just have fun in training & competing, I may revisit this Olympic goal for 2012 in London.

What is Melissa's next competition?

As of right now, I am training to run the Arizona PF Changs Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon. I am just taking it one day at a time, because at this point in recovery some days are better than others. I will be running this race for the experience, for the pure fun of it. I may run a New Year's 5K also.


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