US Decathlete Paul Terek's Blog

Current Status

paulterek — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:34:46 +0000

I waited a while to update this because I was unsure of the severity of my injury, but I now have a long list of going-on’s. First, the MRI results came back and revealed a tear in my lateral meniscus. It was not repairable, so although they would have to take out some of the meniscus, I wouldn’t be immobile for very long. When i got the results, I was feeling almost 100% and was able to train without pain or swelling, so I decided to forego the recommended surgery and try to compete on it. US Nationals was the first meet, and after embarassing performances in every event (due mainly to a quad that was guarding the knee and wouln’t fire), I had to withdraw before the start of the second day because my knee had swollen and was hurting. Immediately upon returning to CA, I had Gary Fanton perform the surgery on 3/9, and since then, have just been rehabbing the knee.

It’s been tough, since it’s been so up and down. After about 2.5 weeks, I was feeling really good, and about 3.5 weeks had been able to jog on it and do basic light lifting motions. But in between good days, are days where it swells and I’m forced to take the next day light because I have limited range of motion. I’ve really been able to improve core and upper body strength, but can tell the motor patterns of my legs are really off. I’m coming up on 6 weeks this Wednesday, and am able to throw and do distance workouts, but no jumping or sprinting workouts yet. That’s basically it. Needless to say, life has been stressful, but everyone around me is handling my excess energy and agitation really well.

US Indoors

paulterek — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:53:47 +0000

It’s the week before US Indoors in Chapel Hill, and for the moment I am feeling pretty good. It’s been an up and down month of training since I have last updated my blog, but hopefully that’s all behind me. To summarize, my left knee got sore and swollen at the end of the first week in February, but after a couple days of rehab and taking it easy, it started feeling better for my trip back to Michigan and Kansas. I was able to do some limited training with Tom Pappas at Kansas State, and thanks to Aaron Shakarian (an old friend who is a chiropractor in Hollywood) felt almost back to normal when I returned to SLO. However, we thought it might be beneficial to get an MRI since it was still swollen and just wanted to be sure training wouldn’t do more damage. We’re still waiting on the results and hopefully there wont be any issues that will require serious attention. Wish me luck.

Welcome

paulterek — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:55:08 +0000

Well it’s taken me five years, but I now officially have a website. This definitely wouldn’t have been possible without the help of some family and of course the fantastic webdesign and work by Les. Over the course of this year leading up to the Trials and God willing, Olympics, I will be posting updates with training and happenings in my life. That being said, the first update is: Surf looks good, shoulder high to 2′ overhead. What that means is, I’ll see you later.