Hi everyone,

Graham here, checking in at the beginning of September after nose surgery—and no, it wasn’t a nose job. After getting off the Haig, I had a few days before I got what is known as a septoplasty, which, for those who are not aware, is a surgical procedure to straighten the nasal septum—the wall of bone and cartilage that divides your nostrils—to improve breathing and airflow. I have had issues for most of my life with breathing through my nose, and this past year I was getting sick constantly, to the point where I wasn’t really able to get into a good training rhythm due to chronic congestion in my head. As for how it went, in the words of Borhrat, “great success!” I’m now in the recovery period, which is relatively short—only about 2 weeks—with the first week involving no training of any kind, the second week involving only zone 1 training, and then, as the weeks progress, I will be able to add in more intense training, which is what I want.

For those who haven’t had this kind of surgery before, afterwards it basically feels like you have to blow your nose but can’t, and that feeling never goes away. It’s constantly there in the forefront of your mind, as is the pressure. The pressure comes from the splints that they put in my nose to help my septum heal properly, which were bigger than I thought they would be when I finally got them out a week after the surgery.

In terms of how this has affected my training, I wouldn’t say that it has been that bad, to be honest. I was able to get a big training block done beforehand where my average hours for the four weeks leading up to surgery were 21 hours, so if anything, the surgery was a good way for my body to absorb the training block that I had finished up. It also gave me time to think about and plan with Andy what the rest of my fall will look like so that I can be at my best as the days come and go. Stay tuned for thoughts from my lovely teammates, and see you all in the next one. If you’re curious about my training specifically and what I’m doing on a week-by-week basis, go and subscribe to my Substack that I started. The link will be in my Instagram profile.

See you all later!

Graham

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