First, we had Valerie, Kent, and Austin come in for the weekend. I made some incredibly rich brownie cookie reese's cup treats. They were pretty amazing. Valerie also brought down some breadsticks from a favorite local restaurant, Aleko's. Mark, the owner, was part of my previous tri club, and makes great pizza and breadsticks. My parents were in town too to watch the kids.
We got up bright and early and got ready to ride. I was feeling really snazzy in my pink kit and new bolero that I had just bought for this ride. Ryan and I
Things were going really well. I was super excited about the cookies they have on this route.
We stopped at the capital building in Frankfort. The floral clock was on the other side of the circle that we took around it. Keira really wants to see it. We'll have to go back as a family.
When we got to the 50 mile route, I probably had my first bad premonition. I felt like it was getting late in the day, and they didn't have any more cookies!!! We chatted with a few people as everyone refueled. I was feeling good, but felt like I needed to slow down a bit.
The crash happened on a steep downhill. The guys had gotten ahead, and I felt like I needed to take advantage of the downhills to try to get closer. I just was going too fast, and slowed down too abruptly. You can read more of the details in the post here. Here are a couple pics Valerie took (after I said it was ok) I look pretty good. They had already cleaned up my knee, shoulder, and elbow. I was glad my top did not need to be cut off. Wearing the bolero that was easy to remove was one of my many blessings that day.
Here are some pics from after. My knee was in bad shape. I felt like I couldn't bend it because of the wound opening, but really it was because of the swelling that had built up in it. My wrists were extremely sore. At the hospital, I couldn't pull my tri shorts down because I had no grip strength. My shoulders hurt, and they were worried about my elbow being broken and couldn't stitch it closed until they had heard from radiology. These were all taken at home, varying amounts of days afterwards. The first knee was the next day.
My helmet was banged up, but my wrists were sore from protecting my face upon the impact.
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Also, I have a before and after picture of my bolero. Our washing machine is the bomb! I used peroxide on it to get the blood out.
You can see the little slit in it at my elbow. I sewed it up!
It was really a rough event. I felt bad that I messed up everyone's day. I was mad that I went down due to poor bike handling. I felt like such an amateur rider. I was really blessed though. I could have been hurt so much worse than I was. I did not have a head injury. I walked out of the hospital on my own. I didn't completely destroy my bike. I had my parents watching my kids so that I knew they were OK this whole time we were delayed. I had friends to pick up my bike. Valerie even brought me more cookies at the end. I was so thankful I cried. While I didn't know it at the time of the accident, but I know it now (when I write this on 8/4/13) that it was not season ending. It was definitely a setback, but I'm OK now. It also seems like it is sort of a rite of passage for cyclists. It seems like almost everyone I know has crashed hard or been hit by a car. Ryan has not gone down, thankfully, but he was involved with a very bad season ending crash for Kent two years ago. My dad was hit by a car. Austin was hit by a car. Amy was hit by a gravel hauler. Thankfully, I feel like mine was rather minor.
That week was hard. I was so stiff and sore. I went to work on Monday, and just limped around. I couldn't ride my bike (trainer) because I couldn't bend my knee far enough. The good news was that on Monday, we stopped into the bike shop and bought new helmets (Ryan cracked his head on a stump mountain biking the week earlier and needed a new helmet too). We dropped my bike off to be checked out too. The next day I got an interesting call. Guess what, we won new wheels from buying the helmet! But the shop didn't like the way my bike looked. I was so sad, until I figured out that the area they were concerned with had looked like that for a year now, from dropping my chain. The wheels we won were the Zipp Z60s. Ryan was on cloud 9! They wouldn't fit my bike, so they were obviously his. DAMN!!! Did you hear me say we were blessed from this?
The next week, I took the entire week off. I got my stitches out on Monday, by Dr Jennings, a cyclist and triathlete. I made a special request for him on the phone because he is not technically my PCP. The lady at the front desk put "cycling question and stitch removal" down for reason for my appointment. Awesome. He crashed last year, broke his arm, and did a tri 6 weeks later. Yes, he was who I needed to see for sure. He assured me that nothing was broken from looking at my films, and recommended that I get on the trainer to work out some of that fluid in my knee. Ouch! It hurt so bad, but it really did help. Running felt the best. Swimming, well, taking a week plus off swimming is never good for me, but the stitches couldn't get wet. It would have felt nice to swim right away after the accident, but I was not allowed. He said I could do my next scheduled event, MMM, in less than a week if I felt like I could control the bike OK, since my wrists killed and I still had a huge gouge on my forearm. Aero hurt and upright hurt. Either way, I was going to go on the trip. It was way too fun of a weekend lined up to bail entirely. Dr. Jennings recommended that I do the shortest route available based on the pain, time off, and the fact that the Horsey Hundred was supposed to be a training ride for the MMM, and I didn't get in the miles. At least I had the green light. I mean, really, how much better could I hope to be? I was incredibly blessed to be doing as well as I was. Check back soon for my MMM recap!
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