A Chrissie Wellington update

January 7, 2010

Despite not going very fast during a 5 hour ride on January 2nd, Chrissie Wellington crashed quite hard and fractured her arm, wrist, hand and a couple of fingers. She checked in with slowtwitch.

Slowtwitch: Chrissie can you share with our readers what happened on that January second ride?

Chrissie: We were on a 5-hour ride and we were about 1.5 to 2 hours into the ride. It was myself, my boyfriend Tom and two close friends and we were riding in the Southside of London in Surrey Hills. We just hit an icy patch on the road and we were really going so incredibly slow, not even 10 miles an hour and my back wheel just went on the ice. We were actually going slightly uphill at the time and I came down and braced myself with my right hand. I fractured my arm, my wrist, my hand in two places and two fingers.

I wanted a break from training but I wanted that after Kona. Basically I was taken to hospital and I had surgery to insert 3 wires into my arm and my wrist under general anesthetic. Now I have a cast on my arm, as you will see. The wires will come out in 4 weeks and the cast will come of in 6 weeks.

ST: How has that changed your plans?

Chrissie: I was planning to go to Lanzarote this week for a month. Now I have broken bones but I have not broken my spirit. I’ll do as much as I can with one hand. I can bike indoors but I can’t put a lot of weight on that arm at the moment. Basically I’ll be sitting up on my bike. At the moment I have to keep it pretty much in the same position otherwise it is pretty painful. I will be able to do some water runs and I’ll kick in the swimming pool. I already am doing some core stuff. Plus I’ll go for walks, and I believe walking will be fine. It’ll give me a chance to do some other things. See some friends; catch up with family and stuff like that.

ST: Surely your friends and family are happy to see you, but most likely not under those circumstances.

Chrissie: Exactly, that is exactly what my dad said. My friends also said it is nice to have me around longer but they wished it wasn’t one-handed. It is ok though. It is just not so easy to do the things you want to do, like tie you shoe laces and chop vegetables. I am pretty dependent on my boyfriend at the moment to do all the cooking, which he is loving.

ST: You are right-handed?

Chrissie: Yes, I am right-handed. I signed a couple of posters since the accident with drunken spider handwriting. So I am learning to write with my left hand now. Even little things are different. Obviously getting dressed, and I can’t tie my hair back and that is really frustrating. But you can sit there and mope or you can sit there and do what you can with what you got. I look at some people and count myself pretty lucky. It is a bit of a setback, but not one that is insurmountable.

ST: We wish a speedy recovery and look forward to see you racing later this summer.

Chrissie: Thank you so much. I’ll be back. We almost sorted out the race deal for the summer.

Chrissie had a bit of fun with the pics below but she told us that she really needs to sit up when she rides her bike right now.