WakeCarro

Hey everyone.
It’s been a while since I last blogged and I think it’s because I’ve been staying busy with University and my rehab. The other day I wrote my first ever exam at Stockholm Business School and the day before that I was cleared to do skipping ropes by my PT Britta!

My life took an unexpected turn about four months ago when I realized I had damaged my knee and would require surgery. I decided to take up one of those things that I had always been imagining doing but never got around too: education. Since I now have a few more months before my knee will be strong enough for wakeboarding I’ll spend my time with my nose in the school books (drinking way too much coffee) and actually enjoying it! At first it was a bit of a shock but now I’m loving being at hone in Sweden for the beautiful fall and the crisp cool air (and all the friends I have missed so much!!)

When it comes to my rehab, the last few weeks have been incredible! After dealing with a long period of time where my leg would “lock up” out of nowhere and a lot of pain in my kneecap things are moving forward with light speed! Three weeks ago I started training “3D Function Training” with my new trainer who calls himself  @HansofHell. Along with this I’ve got my 3 times/week physical therapy sessions and yoga, biking and swimming. I can honestly say I have never worked out this hard before and I am looking forwards to see what this will do for my riding once I am back on the water (by March 2017)!

  

 

In May 2016 Mackie Rosen took a life changing fall in a wakeboard competition, dislocating his knee, tearing all ligaments and causing severe artery damage. The limited supply of blow flow to his foot caused a life threatening situation and Mackie had to have his left leg amputated.

There are no words to explain Mackies courage and strength, but the videos of him doing his physio exercises merly days after this injury and his ability to try and stay positive when his life has just been turned upside down might say it all.

Our goal with this page is to help Mackie finance a prosthetic leg that can get him back on his wakeboard! We have found a suitable leg (that will have to be able to handle the impact of wakeboarding and function to a higher standard) for 14 000 USD which is where all the money raised for this donation will go.

I know Mackie will do everything in his power to get out on the water again, now it’s time we do our part!

 

Find the donation page here: LINK

 

For one week I flew back into Orlando to meet up with all my friends who travel to Florida for the Surf Expo. It’s always fun to see the new product and all the people I’ve barely seen all season so without hesitation I decided to skip one week of university (I just started one semester at the Stockholm Business school). Keep your eyes peeled on the Slingshot Wake website  the coming days for the release of the 2017 line! Here’s a sneak peak of the women’s boards the new Valley and the Pearl!

Almost a decade ago I came across the images from the first Wake the Line event. It almost made me choke my coffee as I saw the huge arena with rails and kickers some creative soul had put  in the local swimming pools! I remember being amazed and watching the event for a lot of inspiration before I arranged my very first own competition, the “O’Neill Wake Up Stockholm”. Now the event is probably the most established rail event in the world. To quote David Vervenne from Unit Parktech and the setup designer ”Riders drop whatever they are doing to come to this event. It doesn’t matter if they had other plans, an invite to WTL clears their schedule”. A statement proven by the fact that this year WTL was being held the same weekend as the WWA boat World Championship in Toronto with no rider turning down the opportunity to compete against the worlds best rail riders in Cologne.

I flew into Germany on friday morning and after realizing that the three hoodies and rain jacket i packed for the event would be staying in my bag completely untouched due to the 34c in the air I got picked up by David from the airport. During the next few days he showed me around the wakeboarding scene in Germany including the cable Langenfeld and of course the practice sessions at WTL. Once there I was thrilled so see so many of my friends, especially the first ever female rider invited to compete in the event: german World Champion Julia Rick. The course looked as good as always  and talking to David I could tell how much effort and planning had been put into arranging the event. Every single detail had been thought of and all the riders I could see practicing were having huge grins on their faces and were ready for Sundays competition. When I asked around for who people thought were gonna take the top spot I received different answers every time and the most common reply was ”The setup is so unique that really it is anyones game”.

On the day of the competition a massive crowd started filling up the bleachers. Estimated tickets sold for the event were 3000 and due to the amazing sunny weather the arena was packed. I was thrilled to meet some on my german friends and fans and I hope, like they said, that I can come back to Wake the Line next year and try this setup once my knee is healed! Sundays comp showed us some insane riding and in the end the final consisted of four riders: Raph Derome (CAN), Daniel Grant (THA), Nico Von Lerchtenfeldt (GER) and Dominik Hernler (AUT). The level of riding was insane and in the end (even though he accidentally cut open his head) Daniel Grant dominated both the Wakeboarding event and the Wakeskating one! Closely followed by Raph Derome in the wakeboard finals  and Austin Pastura (USA) in wakeskate.

I had an amazing time taking over the Lifeproof Snapchat and Insta stories and hopefully I can take you back there next year as well!
Thanks for following!

These past few weeks I have been focusing 100% on my rehab. Normally I wake up at 6am to head to the gym and then I go back at 5pm for a bike session or water therapy. Every day is different, some days I feel really good and my rehab sessions are great and the next day I’ll wake up with a swollen knee and a strong urge to throw something in the wall because I know I over strained my knee the previous day. Today was one of those good days as I took my bike for a 30 minute ride OUTSIDE in the Swedish cool summer air. After that I went to work on my rehab program and for the first time since surgery I got to put some weights on my lounges! I am super excited to be moving forward and to see how my knee is getting stronger each day! I feel like time is flying by and I’ll be back on the water before I know it!

(OBS. graphic images at the end of this post – don’t look if you’re squeamish)

Today I woke up feeling like my heart had tied a knot to itself, swallowed a stone and jumped in the ocean. For someone like me with the somewhat naive attitude that I can do whatever I want, this injury has been the biggest challenge in my wakeboarding career so far. Even bigger than my double flip attempts and winning four European titles.

As I’m writing the previous sentences I get a lump of guilt in my stomach. This shouldn’t be so bad, it’s only an ACL surgery, there are people dealing with way worse! The first person who comes to mind is my friend Mackie who had to amputate his leg due to a wakeboarding injury, and look how strongly he is handling it! “You’re such a baby Carro, stop feeling sorry for yourself”. Those were the thoughts echoing inside my head this morning. But beneath all those thoughts of devastation, exasperation I feel some different, weaker thoughts. These are the thoughts that never leave me even if sometimes, like this morning, they keep to the very back of my mind. They are whispering with very quiet voices “This too shall pass Carro, everything is going to be okay”.

This morning I’ve spent over an hour, crying on my yoga mat with a 1kg ankle weight strapped to my right leg as I was in the middle of doing my physio exercises when sh#t hit the fan. Since surgery I’ve been staying pretty positive, mostly because of JB, and I’ve been focusing on moving forwards “Look JB, I can straighten my leg now! Look I can bend it to 90 degrees! Look you can see me flexing my quad muscles!” I guess emotions just slowly were building up as I realized what this injury meant for me. I will wont be able to wakeboard for the rest of the season meaning I’ll have no way of defending my European Champion title. I wont be able to attend all the amazing events in locations all over the world. I wont be going to the World Cup in China as I was so thrilled to once again qualify for the tour and I will have to spend most of my time away from my boyfriend and friends without as much of a glimpse of all the parks I love in the US.

As my cat fled for the hills from my whaling noises and my runny eyes and nose I reached one of my all time lows in this injury process. This because I realized that it was raining outside and that I would have to make my way to the subway station on my crutches (which normally takes 5 minutes but now 25), take the train for 30 minutes and then crutch the 20 minutes to the hospital for a check-up appointment. After some close thought, I realized that the reason I was sad didn’t have anything to do with this but because I felt a huge sensation of abandonment. I’m ashamed to admit that I was hoping for everyone I love to drop their whole lives and jobs and stride to my rescue; “oh no, poor Carro with her injured knee, let’s all take care of her!”. The fact that the bossy receptionist at the hospital told me “So what that it takes you a while, you’re able to put weight on your leg aren’t you?” when I had called her earlier made me feel like I was being a big baby. Yes I could put weight on my leg but I’d made the trip to the train the previous day and after about half way my leg was throbbing and swelling up. Maybe I just have a low threshold for pain? Maybe I’m weak.       Maybe    I’m    weak…

The real pain is the insight that I can’t handle this by myself. It’s always been important to me to be independent. I moved out of home when I was 16 to attend the Wakeboarding School, I’ve lived in 6 different countries since I turned 19 and now I can’t even carry my own coffee cup to the couch. I love my family and my friends and I know that they love me too. My Mom took off work the day of my surgery and waited 5 hours in the Hospital for me to wake up from the anesthesia. She’s been making me food, washing my clothes and caring for me ever since but of course she still has to go to work. JB flew all the way from Texas to sit on the couch with me and do absolutely nothing with me straight after surgery. We watched 5 movies a day, played sudoku, and started my physio exercises.

I know my family loves me but this morning I feel like my three year old nephew whenever he trips over real bad and scrapes his knees. I want someone to stroke my hair and tell me “everything is going to be alright”. Unfortunately I’m a “grown up” now, and I’m expected to take care of myself. Well most of the times I can, today I just needed that reassurance from someone and as it happened all of my family members where occupied this morning and didn’t answer their phones. Well except for my brother who told me to stop whining (I still love you bro).

After another 20 minutes of crying on the floor, all of a sudden the tears and sobs stopped coming. I laid exhausted on the livingroom floor with swollen eyes and small mountain of tissues next to me. I know, and I’ve always known, that eventually I’m going to feel okay. I know that this is tough for me and it’s okay that it’s tough. I don’t have to compare my journey through this injury to anyone else’s because they are all different. I can see most of my friends heading for different competitions and it’s crazy how something that makes me so nervous that I wanna throw up is the only place I’d want to be right now. I get so jealous after watching them celebrate their victories or the achievement of landing new tricks. But actually I am celebrating too.  I’m celebrating that my stitches are out. I am celebrating that I can bike again, that I have all these amazing humans around me that I call friends and family and that today I had to find out the hard way that I can take care of my feelings by myself. Last but not least I’m celebrating that I now can carry my own coffee cup from the kitchen to the couch.

The hard work has begun, I will be back!

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, so honored by all the kind words on the Swedish News last night! I’m always a bit nervous filming for interview as you, as and athlete, never have any idea of the angle the reporter/editor is going to take. This 3 minute piece took us about 2 hours to film so obviously there’s always a lot of talking cut out!

Anyways, I was filled with this huge warmth when I watched it on the news yesterday with my mom. Thank you so much Swedish media for this amazing piece! If you missed it on channel 2 last night, you can watch it here: LINK 

Sommarkurser 7-10 Juli!
I år kommer jag tillsammans med Froggy Vattensport att arrangera fyra stycken kurs-dagar utanför Linköping! Vill du lära dig grunderna, utveckla din åkning eller kanske börja satsa på nya volter och spins så är det alltid lättaste med coaching. Alla nivåer/åldrar är välkomna, gå en eller flera dagar och få massor med tips att träna på själv under resten av sommaren! 🙂

Mer info här: LÄNK

Excited to be running a wake clinic together with Froggy in Linköping, Sweden! Check out the link here: LINK

Only 3 more days left to vote for you favorite riders!

It would make me so happy if you wanted to vote for me ♥ wkbm.ag/2016ReadersPoll

One of my favorite things about Texas is all the amazing nature! When you’re from Sweden and you think of Texas you think about: Horses, Cowboyboots, Guns and tumble weed. When I went there the first time I was so surprised about all the amazing watering holes around austin such as the Hamilton Pool, Jacobs Well and Barton springs to mention a few. JB and I have been visiting a bunch of different nature preserves after a stop at Wholefoods to fill our backpacks up with sandwiches and snacks. I even got him to skinny-dip at one location with me! Us europeans… 😉

Anyways, feeling like discovering some Swedish Hiking spots so I need your help! I live in Stockholm so preferably around that area would be great! All tips are welcome, GO!

(please let me know in the comment field, and yes you may write in Swedish)