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Paula Findlay (triathalon) is photograhed at the Delta Meadowvale Hotel in Mississauga, Ont. Nov. 2/2011.

Canadian Olympic triathlon competitor Paula Findlay spoke to Globe and Mail reporter Beverley Smith last November at length about her recovery from a labral tear in her right hip and how she and her team handled the injury in the build up to London. Here are exerpts of what Findlay had to say:

- "I was injured in July [of 2011]. The last two months of my season, I was hoping it would go away, but it lingered. Even after September (the ITU World Championship Series Grand Final in Beijing on the 2008 Olympic course) I was still a bit injured, but trying to convince myself that I wasn't. I'd been trying to minimize the pain but I was sort of running through it."

- "After Beijing, I decided to finish my season and not go to the Pan Am Games. Since then I've been rehabbing and taking a mental break. I still trained a bit, but in a way that helped me heal in a non-regimented training schedule, because I felt fatigued and burned out a little bit."

- "I had a bike fit done to change my position because we thought it might be contributing to the injury. Just a lot of little changes. I'm in a better mental and physical state now than I was at the end of the season. The bike fit helped me a lot too. That opened up my hips a lot. We're sensitive to the tiniest of changes. You have to be careful not to change too much. But even the small changes have helped me a lot."

- "I took time off running and cycling together at the same time. And probably the time away from that was crucial and something I didn't allow myself in the summer [of 2011] when I was trying to get ready for a race."

- "If I could go back in time, I would have taken a chunk of time off in the summer so I could get ready for September [of 2011]. But I was stubborn and I refused to take a break from working. My body was telling me it needed rest, but I was not letting it."

- "I do enjoy activity. I can't go a day without exercising. Sometimes the structure of training can be exhausting."

- "Part of the reason I'm so injury prone, I think, is because swimming [her original sport] is a non-impact sport, and I didn't start running until I was in high school so my body isn't used to the pounding and the high miles. I have relatively low running mileage compared to a lot of people I race against. I felt like I could keep my fitness up with my swimming, because that's what I did with my background."

- [On Simon Whitfield]. "We have the same coaches and I see him at the pool every day. He swims beside me in the next lane, but we don't have the same workouts or run together or bike together very often. But he's so helpful and he's an excellent resource for me, and just having him in the same city and being in the pool every day, that's motivating for me. He knows all the ins and outs, and he's happy to answer questions and give me advice."

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