Page 35 of On the Edge

“Right here,” I say, putting my fingertips along the ridge of muscle that’s particularly tight.

Gently, she moves my hand back to the table and uses her fingers to probe in a circular pattern around the muscle while asking about different pain points. “Well,” she says finally, “it seems like you just have a knot in your back. Probably from the strain of the past week. There’s no real inflammation, except right at the knot, so I don’t think you’ve pulled anything.”

“So what can I do about it? Heat and stretching?”

“Yeah, that’ll help. Have you ever done dry needling?”

“Not even sure what that is,” I tell her.

“It’s kind of like acupuncture. I place needles directly into the knot to stimulate blood flow to the area. It usually results in a loosening of the knot and pretty instant pain relief. And it doesn’t hurt.”

My shoulders shake with a small laugh that comes out more like a snort. “I’m not really worried about the pain.” Pain is part of a professional athlete’s life, and a few tiny needles stuck into my back aren’t going to hurt nearly as badly as some of what I’ve already experienced.

“All right, why don’t you lie face down,” she says as she takes a few steps away. I look over my shoulder and she’s digging through a bag and pulling out a small hard plastic kit. I lie on my stomach with my arms bent so I can rest my head on my hands.

Her footsteps are soundless and I nearly jump when she places her hand on my back. “I’m going to work a little tension out of the area first,” she tells me. The heel of her hand digs into the knot in my back; it’s pain on the edge of relief. She keeps talking, almost like nervous chatter. “You will want to put heat on this tonight. Take a really hot bath or I can give you a heat pack if you want. It’ll help loosen up this muscle some more, and can help with the tenderness from the dry needling.”

“Will it really be tender?” I ask. “Or is that like a disclaimer you have to give me before doing the procedure.”

“Little of both. Everyone reacts differently. I know you’ve had acupuncture before, but this is a bit different. These needles will be going directly into the trigger point, so your muscle may begin to twitch as it releases the tension,” she tells me as she runs her thumb over the knot. “You ready?”

“Sure.”

“No talking,” she insists. “Just relax.”

The thin needles go in so easily I barely feel them, but as she predicted, my muscle begins to twitch as the knot loosens and the blood starts flowing into it. The relief is almost instant. I lie there for probably twenty minutes, so relaxed that I start to feel drowsy.

“I’m going to take them out now,” she tells me, her voice soft and quiet. With the door closed, there’s barely any noise from the mostly empty lodge.

“Mmm,” I say to acknowledge her. I’m almost too relaxed to talk. But then she starts pulling the needles out of my back, a strange sensation that, while not painful, jolts me right out of my state of tranquility. Things start to come back into focus, like the fact that her hip is about six inches from my face, the vanilla-coconut scent wafting off her body, and the way her fingers move across my skin as she attaches a removable heating pad to my back.

This pull I feel toward her still—all the time—is driving me crazy. I need to explain why it took me five years to come back to her, get her to forgive me so we can move past it. I want to clear the air before we head to Europe this weekend to finish up our training for the first race of the season.

“Jackson,” I say, “why—” But a loud knock on the door interrupts me, and Jackson calls out “come in” so quickly I’m sure I can hear the relief in her voice.

“Oh, sorry,” Jeff says from the doorway.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Jackson tells him. “We were just finishing up a treatment on his back.”

He nods to Jackson. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” Jeff tells me. “You rode over here with me, did you want a ride back to the house?”

Hoping that it’ll give us time to talk, I’m about to tell him I’ll catch a ride with Jackson. But she says, “Good plan, I’ll see you guys back there,” as she puts the sharps container back into her dry needling kit, sweeps up her jacket and her boot bag, and heads for the door.

I watch her slip out of the room, then swing my feet over the edge of the table and sit up slowly. I can’t help the sigh that escapes.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Jeff asks.

“No.”

“Okay,” he says, but nothing about his tone says that he believes me.

“She was just finishing up a treatment on my back.”

“If you’re done letting her treat you like a pin cushion, let’s go. I’m starving!”

I pull the rest of my clothes on, and follow him out hoping that I’ll get a chance to finish that conversation with Jackson back at the house. Ideally without interruptions.

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