I was able to get up and walk over to a grassy spot to sit and check out my bike. It looked ok, just a little banged up. I was in the same condition. Ok, just a little banged up. I had road rash on my arm, shoulder, back and hip. I don’t know why the driver didn’t just call 911. I was too out of it to make any kind of good decisions. I just asked him to drive me home. From there I took myself to the Emergency room. Luckily, nothing was broken. I just had a mild concussion and a bunch of bruises and abrasions. It could have been A LOT worse. I am extremely lucky. After the ER I went to the Police station to file an accident report and then to the bike shop to have my bike looked at. I rested for most of the day after taking care of everything.
My hip:
My elbow:
Wednesday, I went to work (not on my bike). I was in a lot of pain, but I couldn’t really sit around my house all day and with a mild concussion it was probably safer to be near people anyway. My hip really hurt and my shoulder started to turn lovely shades of purple. My elbow was still oozing and not really healing that well. I couldn’t focus on anything and I struggled all day with some short term memory loss. That made for a very long day at work and a very frustrating day. I went home after and fell asleep on my couch at about 5:00 and slept straight through til the morning.
Thursday I felt better so I took my bike (all fixed) out for a short test ride. The handlebars were a little twisted and the new saddle was a little too low and my new pedals were too loose. I made the minor adjustments and I was good to go. I followed the ride up with a short run. I was registered for a 5K and I decided to give it a go and just take it easy. I took it REALLY easy and finished in about 35 minutes. The first mile hurt, but after that I felt ok. So, I figured based on these efforts I could still do the tri on Saturday.
Drove up to Portland on Friday night and picked up the race packet and racked my bike. After leaving the race check in we drove around downtown Portland looking for parking for what seemed like an eternity. I was so friggin hungry I was getting really cranky. It was almost 8pm and I hadn’t eaten since lunch time! We actually found a parking spot but these ho-tastic b*tches were standing in it trying to save it for someone else. If my brother had stopped the car I would have jumped out and throttled the girl for the friggin parking spot because I was so hungry. Instead we ended up circling the block 3 or 4 more times before settling on parking in a garage. We had dinner at flatbreads (me, my mom, and brother). We ordered a Nitrate free pepperoni and mushroom and a veggie special that had pesto and summer squash and zucchini and grape tomatoes and, of course, the organic salad with blue cheese to start off with. It was yummy.
Then Saturday morning was the Urban Epic tri. The swim sucked. First of all, pulling on my tri top in the morning I split open the road rash on my elbow and my shoulder. Then my wetsuit, even though it’s sleeveless, came right over the road rash on my shoulder and rubbed it off completely. It was a ½ mile swim, but it felt like it took FOREVER. I felt good in the first ½ of it, but then I got really winded and a little dizzy. Got out of the water and stripped off my wetsuit. Then there was a ½ mile run to the transition area. Hopped on the bike and blew past people left and right. ALMOST caught up to my brother. I saw him on my first lap and my second lap. He was way faster in the swim though and had a 3 minute head start. The last mile of the bike course was this insane hill, actually two hills one right after the other. Both were ~10% grade (which is REALLY steep). I made it up the first hill fine and thought, that was easy, I can eat hills like that for breakfast. Then the second hill hit hard like a sucker punch. I dropped it into the granny gear and made it over the top ringing my bell for the people cheering. I saw my brother already a mile into the run and knew catching him was not going to happen. I made the fast descent to the transition zone and put on my shoes for the run.
I started to run the wrong way out of the transition area, but then got my bearings and I was off. Got comfortable pretty quickly, but then about ½ a mile into the run there was a huge grass hill to run up. It was more like hiking than running. I got to the top and I was gassed. Still 2.5 miles to go and I was out of energy. I pushed through and continued. My hip started to really hurt a lot and then after a little out and back loop we turned down a trail and had to run down a steep hill on a dirt trail and that hurt A LOT. Then at the bottom of the hill despite the huge orange sign with an arrow on it everyone in front of me turned the wrong way down the trail and I followed them not really paying attention and we got about ¼ of a mile down the trail before we realized we went the wrong way and had to turn around and go back. Got back on track and finished the race with a little kick at the end and then straight to the med tent for some ice. Overall, it was a fun race, tough course, but good times. If I was 100% and not injured I think I might have been able to catch my brother. Afterwards we hung out at the post race party for a while and I gave away my two free beers to some of my brothers friends. Pictures from the race will be posted as soon as I get them.
