Warriner on the mend after rib 'bruise' became break

It is a part of sport - every athlete goes through rough patches and suffers from injuries, but like most sportspeople, Whangarei triathlete Sam Warriner did not expect it to happen to her this year, especially with so much at stake.
Warriner's race season and defence of the World No.1 title came to an abrupt halt after she was hit by a car door  during a training ride in Simi Valley, near Los Angeles.
Initially the diagnosis was bruised ribs and while Warriner missed the third leg of the ITU World Championship Series in Washington DC, she and her doctors felt she was fine to race at Des Moines, Iowa in the Hy Vee Triathlon ITU Elite Cup and Team World Championships three weeks after her crash.
However, racing at these events turned out to be the most painful thing Warriner had ever experienced, she said.
 Warriner then returned home to New Zealand to be with her fiance, Stephen Bradley, where she was forced to stop, recover and refocus.
"When I came home I found out the real extent of my injuries. I broke a rib, bruised my kidneys, had two ribs crushed together, and my diaphragm was pushed up under my ribs, and I also had fluid on the lung if that wasn't enough," she said.
"But I've been getting great treatment here in Whangarei. The ribs are healing but my diaphragm and lungs are taking a little longer."
Warriner has returned to training, and was on the bike yesterday  at Avanti Plus Whangarei, doing a 15km time trial on a wind-trainer to kick-start a week-long shop promotion.
Warriner's time was 22 minutes 48 seconds, which she was really pleased with - and she backed it up with a run, which also felt great, too.
Today Warriner flies out  to New York to race in the American Lifetime Fitness Series, having reshuffled her season's race schedule.
"I'm still not 100 per cent race fit, and get pain at times from the broken rib, but the series is structured so that you have to compete in four out of the five races to qualify for the overall series," Warriner said.
She has missed one of the races already so needs to make the start line for the second New York-based race on July 26, where the 38-year-old said she did not have any expectations.
Next up is the 70.3 Half Ironman at Lake Michigan the following weekend. She will use this as a training race to help her strength and endurance base without worrying too much about top-end speed, she said.
Since the accident, Warriner said her goals have changed slightly.
"I want to get myself back to total fitness and be competitive in the American Series and then get my speed back in time for the World Championships," she said.
"Even though the ITU Series has been getting a lot of coverage, most of the important races are at the end of the year, there's the grand final of the ITU Series on the Gold Coast in September, so I'm just taking a different route to get there. This may even benefit me as I will have done another block of strength and endurance work."
Despite missing most of the ITU World Championship Series, she has a shot at two other world titles - the Duathlon Worlds in September at North Carolina and the Half Ironman World Champs in Florida during November.
The main aim however, was to race and be pain free.
 "The accident really has put things into perspective for me. I love racing, I just want to get back on a start line, it's what I love doing."
Anyone interested in trying to better Warriner's time-trial time should bring their bike down
to Avanti Plus Whangarei in
Cameron Street this week, where they can jump on the wind-trainer to try their luck.