Are you hurt or are you injured?

In the film G.I. Jane (not Ridley Scott’s best, but still an interesting flick) there is a tough as nails drill sergeant (played by Aragorn himself, Vigo Mortinson) who is employed to whip the would-be Navy SEALS into shape. At one point there is a recruit who badly hurts his knee, Vigo grabs the knee and squeezes it for all he’s worth. As the soldier yelps in pain Vigo asks, “Are you hurt or are you injured?” Hurt means you walk it off and keep going, injured means that you give up and quit.

Are you hurt or are you injured? The phrase ran through my head the moment that I hit the ground.

It was all supposed to be a bit of fun. I have a passion for adventure racing; there is something about the challenge, hardship and scenery that really gets me going. Perhaps it’s the same ambition that propelled me to dangerous positions as a young alpine climber. Ten tears ago in my mid twenties I was headed in a dangerous direction. I was climbing harder then ever and the routes that were appearing on the horizon were getting harder and harder which in the climbing world means more and more dangerous. It took a few friends to not come home from the hills for me to re-evaluate what I was doing and have a think about the future. This is where endurance sport and adventure racing came in. it was the same mentality as mountaineering, the same fitness, the same commitment – but the consequences of pushing it to the absolute limit rarely meant death. I never dreamed that I could ever get injured in a race.

I get hurt all the time. Bumps and bruises from falling off my mountain bike, muscle pain from hours on the move are a part of my life. I struggle to remember a time when I wasn’t in the process of losing at least one toenail and either training, tapering or recovering from the latest adventure. But injured is another story – that doesn’t happen very much.

On Saturday I was in a 12-hour orienteering race in the mountains near Wanaka, New Zealand. Along with two other team mates we had to find as many checkpoints as possible over the 12 hour allotted time. We were having a good race, navigating well and working as a good team. Adrian, Mark and I have spent a fair bit of time together in the mountains and are a good match as far as ambition and fitness. It was about 7hrs into the race and it had just finished raining. The ground was wet and the air was cold. We were descending into a steep sided valley through trail-less terrain. It was a jumbled mix of scree, rubble, enormous prickly rose bushes, some over 8 feet tall and Matagouri trees, a NZ native plant that sports 2 inch thorns. I was traversing the slope when my left foot slipped on a slick rock on the downhill side. In an instant I was airborne. Like a surfer going over the falls my body was prone in the air, left side down about to body slam the ground. I slammed hard – impacting my left side onto the jagged rocks, with a thorn infested rose bush sandwiched in the middle. My momentum carried me down the slope, cart-wheeling out of control I ripped through another couple of rose bushes and went through a matagouri tree. After 2 rolls I stopped in a heap on the rocks.

Matagouri thorns

Rose thorns

Are you hurt or are you injured?

My whole left side throbbed in pain. The initial slam was the hardest, with the million of prickle points only adding a sour topping on the whole experience. I could move my leg – it wasn’t broken. I got to my feet as Adrian and Mark looked on from the bottom of the hill. Tentatively I worked my way down the slope to meet my companions. Adrenalin was still surging through my veins masking much of the discomfort and allowing me to walk. Assessing the situation there were few decisions to make – we were at least 10km from the road through trackless bush and numerous hills and gullies. I could walk and wasn’t seriously injured. The decision was made to keep going in the race and see how I felt. The adrenaline kept me good company for a while – after some time my left leg began to throb with every step. A bite of chocolate and an ibuprophen took the edge off the discomfort and we kept going. Day turned to night and the race continued. We found more checkpoints and I kept the pace, trying to ignore the pain. For five hours after my fall I kept going even managing to run flat out for the final half hour to get back to the finish before the 12hr cut off.

So am I hurt or am I injured? Well I have a bruise on my ass the size of an apple, one on my thigh the size of a rugby ball; it looks like I have a grapefruit attached to the outside of my knee and a tennis ball attached to my ankle. I’m limping around like a retiree late for an osteopath appointment. I guess I’m just hurt. Will I do these sorts of races again? Without question. I’m not indestructible, no one is. Though I gave myself a good scare and I’ll limp around for the rest of the week, it’s only a few bumps and bruises. And a good story too.