On the 5th tour stop this year in Fuerteventura I injured my right knee in the semifinal against Reno Romeu. While performing a FBM, I completely stopped on a wave taking all the impact on my right leg as my leg was fully extended. Feeling a very sharp pain in my knee, I continued on with the heat, performing a few more tricks and experiencing a lot of pain on the landings…
Marc, when everything was working at max capacity…
After PKRA Fuerte I ended up taking 7 days rest and gave it a try again to see how it felt but it was still sore on impacts. The last day before heading to Germany I was trying my leg out again hoping that I would be recovered enough for the comp. During this session I ended up blowing my ear drum as well! Just my luck. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right on this trip, everything was breaking! But I refused to give up and still headed on my way to Germany.
I really wanted to win PKRA Germany as previously it was my first ever PKRA event that I'd won, but my body was in the wars.
Looking back on the event I remember my first heat being pretty bad – super unbalanced, crashing my fist 5 tricks in a row, but I managed to pull it together towards the end to make the win. I ended up riding pretty well after that, making it all the way to the final against Hadlow. I was super stoked I made it that far with my ear fully taped up as it was ruptured, and my knee hurting on almost every landing.
However in the finals I couldn’t pull it together like the heats before, but I was still happy with my 2nd in the singles. The next day my knee was blown up like a balloon, I lost a lot of flexibility in it and could barely walk normally. I knew it was a way of my body telling me not to ride but I don’t like to give up and still had hope. I ended up facing Liam who was killing it, and my knee was in far too much pain to concentrate on a solid heat with powered tricks. I gave the heat my all but the pain was too much and I couldn’t go for my text book, powered style.
Overall I was still super stoked to make the podium with such injuries. I remember flying home and my knee was so swollen I knew it was time to get it checked out. After seeing a specialist they found I had badly torn my lateral meniscus, which meant 4 months out of the water, 2 months non-weight bearing and 2 months getting it strong again.
Currently I have two weeks left until I’m allowed to walk again, then it's rehab time getting it back nice and strong. I’ve been going pretty crazy but I still go to the gym 6 times a week, hobbling around with my alien leg haha! Working on my upper body and still my left leg as it helps speed up recovery. I started cycling 10 days ago, non weight bearing for 30mins every day, as moving the knee with no weight on it can help it heal faster by encouraging blood flow.
I cant wait to ride again and get my level even higher – one thing about injuries is that my motivation has gone off the carts and I feel like I’m 15 yrs old again when I first tried kiteboarding and motivation is one of the key ingredients to pushing the limits!!
Marc Jacobs rides for Switch, and is now an expert at crosswords.
