Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Time to recover from a broken leg

I broke both bones in my lower right leg just over three weeks ago (see http://www.onyourleft.net/blog/ for more infomation). I now have a 14" Ti rod inside of my tibia. Currently, I can not put weight on that leg. I expect too is about two to three weeks and I think I can get back on the trainer then.

Has anyone from this group suffered the same breaks and how long did it take to get back to 100%

John Henry Maurice
www.onyourleft.net

Ouch!! Our thoughts are with you, man. What a raw deal. Sadly, Mrs. Octopus has some experience with this. She had a tib/fib fracture of her right leg when skiing at Mt. Baker. Super-low speed fall, but it was in some weird inverted snow and the leg just broke.

(1) You'll get much faster healing and a return to cycling 'cause you got harware out of the deal. Mrs. Octopus's break was nearly perfectly, so they just set it in a full leg cast. She had a full-leg -- to the hip -- cast from mid-February through mid-May. That got cut down to being above-the-knee, which she had until July. July and August were in a brace/boot. Free and clear in late August. A few trainer sessions and then she was back on the road Labor Day weekend. Recovery was super-fast from then on -- heck, you saw us two months later riding the tandem up Mackenzie Pass! With the rods and screws, you skip all this crap. Things will heal much, much faster. A friend did a tib/fib break cycling in January (same deal as you; fell at low speed and didn't release). Nasty break that was externally fixated, but he was back on the bike in April.

(2) Another bright side: The doc may have put you back together better than you were originally. It was pretty funny when Mrs. Octopus got back on the road; I immediately noticed that her leg and foot were perfectly aligned -- she'd been severely heel-out her entire life. One of the benefits of breaking all the bones in your lower leg is they can put 'em back straight. Now she did have to learn to ski all over again having compensated for that for 20 years.... but it improved her cycling noticably due to a much more efficient delivery of power to the pedal.

Anyway, best of luck; heal up soon. And hey,at least this happened in the winter and you already have an R-12 to your name!

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. From the X-rays it looks like pretty clean breaks and you should heal up nicely. Keep in mind however that blood flow in that area is not the best in the body ... and then, there's your age ;)

As I've reported here (on a thread I can't search for due to recent "improvements") I was run down by a red light-runner in July and received a very serious crushed lower right leg that splintered my lower tibia right into the joint and broke my fibula -- highly comminuted open pilon fracture as it's known in the biz.

I've been pretty much bed-bound for four months and am unlikely to be on the bike or walking for another 6 months at least.

There has been little sign of bone union in my case, although wounds and skin graft has healed well. The catch-22 is that healing responds best when you can put some weight on the limb, but that's not possible until there's some union. As soon as you can, try getting on the trainer. When your ortho tells you it's safe, start applying some weight.

Good luck and all the best.

You will get considerable shrinkage in the muscle mass in that leg from disuse, even if you are off it only 6 weeks. Both upper and lower leg muscles atrophy in a cast. The
rest of your system has been at idle speed and you will drop a significant amount of your aerobic capacity. In my 20s and early 30s, I could take 8-10 weeks off the bike
completely and get back on in mid- late January and be racing adequately in mid March. Now, I think it would be closer to 6 months to recover, and more likely 8-12 months.
I think that a reasonable time frame for you is 6 months, couple of months to get the muscle mass back and then 3-4mo to get the aerobic capacity/endurance back. It might be longer,
and for highly motivated types a bit shorter, but as another poster noted, your age is against you. That assumes every thing goes well with the healing and no
complications develop. As randochap noted, non-union can be a vexing problem.