Quick chat with Dee Dee Trotter
When Dee Dee Trotter landed on the U.S. Olympic track and field team in 2008, it was nothing short of a minor miracle. A serious injury to her left knee left Trotter a shade of her formal self. After Beijing, she opted for microfracture surgery that forced her to miss the majority of the 2009 season. But Trotter is back on the track, and spoke about her surgery, recovery and goals for 2010.
By Joe Battaglia, Universal Sports | Posted: Feb 8, 11:02a ET | Updated: Feb 8, 11:02a ET
BOSTON – When Dee Dee Trotter landed on the U.S. Olympic track and field team in 2008, it was nothing short of a minor miracle. In April of 2008, she suffered a serious injury to her left knee that hampered her performances to the point where she was a shade of the runner who had won Nationals, World Championship and Olympic medals throughout her career.
The injury continued to affect Trotter in Beijing, where she advanced to the semifinals of the open 400m but did not make it to the medal round. All along, she knew she was headed toward surgery. That fall, she opted for microfracture surgery, a procedure that works by creating tiny fractures in the underlying bone, causing new cartilage to develop in the knee.
While the procedure is quick and minimally invasive, the recovery process is significantly longer. After almost eight months of rehabilitation, Trotter returned to the track last summer, competing in four meets, but was hardly in peak form. She advanced to the semifinals of the USA Outdoor Championships, finished seventh at the Athens Grand Prix, fourth in her heat at the Aviva London Grand Prix, eighth at the DN Galan meeting in Stockholm and eighth at the Aviva Grand Prix in Gateshead.
While those performances left Trotter disheartened, she never wavered in her determination to make a full recovery. After two low key meets to open the 2010 indoor season, Trotter showed impressive form in winning the 400m at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games on Saturday night.
As she prepares for the USA Indoor Championships later this month, when she hopes to qualify for the national team and a trip to the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Trotter spoke to Universal Sports about her surgery, the rehabilitation process, and her goals moving forward.
Can you tell me about your knee surgery and how that went?
My knee surgery was after the Olympics. It was a six to eight month recovery process. I had the surgery in October of '08 and wasn’t allowed back until April or so. That’s when I was able to actually get out there again. Last year, in spite of not having the proper training of course, I took the opportunity to make a comeback of some form or fashion so I wouldn’t have the whole year sitting behind me and I would be able to come back this year stronger without having to start from scratch. I kind of took a beating last year, physically and mentally, but it was all worth it because now I’m able to come back running the way that I am running now and still be able to come out here and be competitive despite the fact that I missed almost an entire season. I feel fully recovered. I have a wonderful surgeon and a wonderful support team back in Knoxville. My knee is no longer an issue and I’m doing what I need to do to make sure it stays that way. I’m excited about this year. I’m excited about indoor Worlds. I’m excited about the USA Championships. I think it’s going to be a really good year for me.
Was the knee bothering you in Beijing?
My knee actually went bad in April of ‘08. I don’t know if you remember but I had several bad races leading up to the Trials. I ran 53, 53, 53, and got kicked out of Prefontaine. I had a bad run of it but that was because of my knee. It looked like the surgery I needed was going to be the one that showed the most favor. There was a surgery I could have done that was very invasive and could have possibly taken me out of track and field, period. Then there was the microfracture surgery that is becoming a popular trend now. They thought at the time that maybe I wasn’t a candidate for that. When they went back in after me trying to make the team, making the team, going to Beijing, making the semifinals but not making the final, after that they said let’s go back in and look at it again. They went in with the scope and said, ‘We’re going to try the microfracture.’ So far so good.
Did you do any further damage to the knee by continuing to push to try and make the Olympic Team and then run on it in Beijing?
My doctor and I decided that the stage I was in then probably wouldn’t have gotten any worse. Did it get any worse? Let’s just say it wasn’t responding to the treatments we were doing to try and band-aid it together. When I got to Beijing, I was three therapeutic cortisone shots in the hole and I wasn’t able to get any more without doing further damage. I just think I was running on borrowed time.
At that point, were you just hoping the knee would hold up?
Yeah. We’re talking from April to August that I had to try and put a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It was interesting. It was a battle. I cite my third-place finish at the Olympic Trials as one of the most prestigious and favorite athletic accomplishments because of what I had to go through to get on that team. I have gold medals but that third place means a lot to me.
How concerned were you that the microfracture surgery was not going to take and would knock you out of the sport altogether?
I was very worried because when you get that surgery once, you can’t get it again. Once you have that surgery, if it doesn’t work, then you have to get the complete bone replacement surgery which has something like a 90 percent failure rate in terms of being able to come back athletically and compete the way you might have once before. We put a lot of faith into the microfracture surgery, just hoping it would enable me to continue coming out and competing like I did today. The bone-replacement surgery is a bad one. You don’t want that one. I’m glad this is holding up. My only complaint is that it took so long to get back here.
What was the rehab from the surgery like?
Oh my gosh. It was very slow. I spent eight to 10 weeks on crutches. That was the hard part, because you’re not weight bearing but you’re able to use it. It bends, it moves, it’s not swollen any more. You have active use of it but you’re not allowed to walk on it. It would be different if you were in a straight-leg cast and they tell you, ‘Ok, don’t walk.’ It was very frustrating to have a working leg sitting there and you can’t use it. I was begging them to put a cast on me or something because then I knew I couldn’t use it. It was a very slow process. It took a lot of patience. Your progress is measured in like centimeters. Every day you would get a teeny bit better. Sometimes you would go, ‘I’m doing great,’ and then it would go back. It was a rollercoaster at times. Once you get off the crutches and start using it, as an athlete, you’re like, ‘Yeah!’ but it’s still not right. Even when I was out running last year - I made a couple of track meets last year in Europe - even then it was very frustrating. To be honest, right now I am only four months out of having to deal with my knee on a daily basis. The last three months is when it has shown to be fully recovered. Sometimes now, I even forget about it. I still take care of it because I don’t want any future problems, but now it’s more about being responsible and taking care of yourself instead of having to get in with the trainer every day.
How difficult was it to go back out onto the circuit for a little bit and not have the type of results you have become accustomed to?
You have to prepare yourself for a mental beatdown. It was a true mental beatdown. Worse than losing is losing badly. Worse than losing badly is losing badly when you know people expect you to be great. It was tough, but I took it with a grain of salt because I knew ultimately it was saving me from a start-from-scratch year this year. I went out there and did some of the fall training and tried to get back my competitive edge. That kind of stuff is what I was looking for. Mentally, it was not always the easiest time going to those races and coming in last , coming in seventh, coming in in 53 seconds. It wasn’t easy, but it was all in the name of 2010. When I go out and run the way I ran today - this was my third 400 of the season and my other two were both 52-low races - I knew the mental beatdown I went through last year was well worth it.
Where did you open the season?
This year, I opened at Virginia Tech, and ran 52.8. Then I ran last weekend at Kentucky on an oversized track with a 52.13. I came here hoping to get a world-leading time. Because of the stumble, I didn’t get it, but I think you saw that I could have gotten it.
Why did you choose to start with a couple of low-key college meets?
We really haven’t had any pro meets at all. All we had was Millrose, and I opted out of Millrose because its 145-meter track and I’m more into performance right now than I am in prestige. Millrose is a prestigious event. It’s about being part of the Millrose Games tradition and what that stands for. We all know that if you run a quarter there, it’s not about time, it’s not about training, it’s about being part of the event. I opted out of the meet because I wanted to get training in versus going to New York to run a quarter that would probably be a 53- or 54-second race and four lanes of fun. I took the fun out of the cards to get a real 400m in and a 200m for some training, and to be ready to actually do what I’m supposed to do here and put myself in a better position for the USA Championships.