AVOCA, New South Wales/Australia (Monday, August 19, 2013) -Glenn ‘Micro’ Hall (AUS), 31, put everything on the line in his heat against Jordy Smith (ZAF), 25, in Round 2 of the Volcom Fiji Pro, taking off late and deep at Restaurants in an attempt to surpass the South African for what would have been a massive victory. Unfortunately, Hall would suffer a horrific wipeout, resulting in three fractured vertebrae and an emergency helicopter trip off of the island. Hall has been in recovery mode over the last few months and recently gave his fans and update on his status. This… is his story…
The 16th of August is day one of the waiting period of the billabong pro Tahiti 2013. The 3-4 foot ssw swell is enough for the contest director get excited and kickstart the event on the 1st day of a 12 day waiting period. So The 16th of August 2013 I should be piling my dhd rounded pin dx1′s into the boat with my travel mates Ace and Wilko and heading out to surf a heat at one of my favourite waves in the world. Instead I am boarding a flight with 2 different travel mates to a different destination for a different type of trip. My first real family holiday with my amazingly supportive wife Jemma and hilarious daughter Zara. A holiday without surfboards,without wetsuits,without contests sites,without plans! When life gives you lemons,make lemonade. I love that saying. My lemons right now are a touch bitter in the way of not being allowed to surf for the past 10 weeks, and not knowing how much longer it will be. I’m still yet to even try and lie on a surfboard. The doctors,physios and chiros im seeing are all saying 3 fractured vertebrae is an injury you just can’t afford to push. If I push it and don’t rehab it right I could end up with back problems for the rest of my life. I’m not good at sitting still and doing things slowly so for me its hard not to do too much.
So with a few trees full of lemons I have made a keg full of lemonade. My lemonade comes in the form of time with my family. I haven’t missed Zara’s dancing class for 10 weeks. ( even though she just stands there in her tutu watching the other kids learn moves that will come one day come in handy in a dance circle at the local nightclub). I wake up next to Jemma every morning and have a coffee together while Zara has a babycinno. We go swimming, morning walks to the beach, go to parks , go to the footy all the general family things you sacrifice when you spend 8 months of the year away from home. They are the simple things that a normal family wouldn’t even realize how lucky they are to do together every day. I did choose to travel and compete knowing I would have to sacrifice those things for now and it was a hard choice once Zara was born. Being a traveling pro surfer is a whole other kind of lucky life and im so grateful for that, but you sacrifice things that people don’t realize. So everyone is lucky in their own way!
Time with family or surfing in Tahiti, either way its awesome.
Don’t get me wrong, watching round one on my iPhone driving to the airport instead of floating in the channel is hard to deal with after I did 10 years work to get a spot on the world tour. But one sip of lemonade and its all good.
After 8 weeks of pretty much nothing but trying to heal in the way of sitting around and getting fat (fatter), I’ve finally gotten to the stage of the recovery where I have a program of exercises and stretches to do. Until only a week or two ago The doctors orders were besides a few light core exercises, ‘don’t do much at all and let the bones heal’. The new exercises aren’t too extreme but its feels like I’m actually burning energy now and can finally get stuck in to some hard work to get back to 100%. I’m already feeling like I’m progressing rapidly after only less than a week on the new program.
So this morning while I was packing my travel bag full of training gear whilst watching round one of Tahiti I had a big glass of lemonade and thought of the positives. Yeah I was watching my mates surf one of my favorite waves in a wt event that could have been in, but I’m going on my first ever family holiday to Bali. Yeah I’m not even able to take a board cos I can’t surf, but I don’t have to drag that dirty 25kg bag through the airport wondering how much I will be charged in excess luggage.
Making lemonade!
I’m going to Bali for 10 days with no plans but to eat good food, train every day and do whatever my wife tells me to do. Normally if my family are away with me everything revolves around the surf contest. Early mornings, long drives, missing things because the swell has come up. This trip is my time to return the favor, whatever she wants to do I will do it. ( or mind Zara while she does it if its real bad).
Luckily Jemma likes going to the gym so everyday we are going to get Zara baby sat and hit the gym. 10 days of full on training and who knows, I might be right to paddle a board when I get home. Like I said I can’t rush it and have no real idea of when I will be back in the water, but I’m feeling stronger and really looking forward to the challenge of getting back to 100%. I will follow the advise from the docs/ physios and chiros and will do everything I’m allowed to do to get back in the water as soon as I can without pushing it too hard and cause longterm damage.
I will be watching the rest of the comp from Bali cheering on my friends and hope they’re scoring epic waves. I vow to ‘like’ every sunset photo I see from teahupoo on Instagram, and I promise I wont hope it gets ‘code purple’ during the waiting period.
Thanks a lot to everyone who has shown interest in my progression and shown their support. I really appreciate it and it gives me more motivation to get back even stronger than before.
10 days training,chilling with my 2 favorite humans sipping lemonade (with vodka) with some of our best friends in Bali.- doctors orders.
