Coaching while coming back from a serious injury
I’ll start this with, I’m truly not sure if this is a dumb ask, so if it is, please have some mercy on me. Hoping for some guidance from the group. I was hit by a car 2 months ago and had (have) a decent list of injuries. 6 broken ribs, 2 fractured vertebrae, collapsed lung, removed spleen, removed half of my pancreas, skin graft, etc.
I got very lucky that I didn’t have any injuries to my head, legs, or arms (except flesh wounds from going through the windshield). I’m now to the point where I can start to work my way back in to training.
Background on me: Cat 3 racer (mostly crits) with aspirations to continue to develop. Had a coach for the full year prior to the accident and (completely unrelated) decided to separate from them about 2 weeks prior to the accident. I didn’t separate because anything was wrong, I completed the workouts and got stronger but I didn’t need help with motivation or workout structure, I planned to move to a coach that spent more time on race craft. I have trained between 12-15 hours a week consistently for the last 2.5 years.
Since the accident, I’ve gotten on the bike twice and quickly realized that to get back on track, I’m going to need some help. I blew up catastrophically on the second ride to the point that I couldn’t breathe because I went too hard. I know this was dumb but that is what leads me here. My body post trauma is very different than it was before. I’m still dedicated to improvement, whatever that is going to look like but if I’m left to my own devices, I am going to set myself up for failure by thinking I’m stronger than I am and going for more than I probably should. Are their coaches that specialize in athlete rehab and build plans to help you continue to improve? More importantly, that understand the physiology of recovery and can use the training peaks data and conversations with the athlete to customize and tweak the plan?
I know this isn’t that much different than finding any coach, regardless of the circumstance but I’m hoping maybe someone here has been through similar or can help me figure out my next step.
Thanks all.
Posted Aug 14, 2025, 12:31 AM UTC