A Bump in the Road (Or Something Like That)

13 days out. This post was supposed to be about final preparation, about goals, about fears. Today I headed out for a 60 mile ride. At about 50 miles in, I crashed. I chide myself for it because I knew that there was a spot of gravel on that road. There must have been a new culvert put in or something. But I didn’t see it until I was about 10 feet from it. I grabbed my brakes with one hand (wrong hand – front brakes) and went over my handlebars. I hit my head pretty hard (helmets are great!) and I had blurry, double vision for a bit. It’s a small abrasion on my cheek, but with a lot of swelling. I hit my left shoulder and back of my left hip pretty bad. The damage to my hands is minimal in comparison, though painful still. I have limited mobility in my left shoulder, but it didn’t hurt as bad as when I sprained my right shoulder with my other crash. I think that it will be okay, but I do anticipate having to rehab it to get full strength and mobility back.

There’s a lot of questions that follow – will I be able to race in 13 days? How much will I even be able to train in these final 2 weeks? Have I done enough to get myself through these next days and still be race ready? And how am I supposed to pick up my kids now?! The biggest race concern I think will be the swim, if my wounds will be healed enough to get in the water, and if my shoulder will be able to swim. I just got a new wetsuit a couple days ago too that I was pretty stoked to try out! IF I can swim on race day, I do not anticipate being able to test out the wetsuit in advance. I went with a sleeveless style and I would like to make sure water doesn’t leak through the armholes, which would slow down the swim.

Interesting thing is, this was my third and final outdoor bike ride before the race. I’ve been staying indoors a lot more than I anticipated. It was my last outdoor ride with only 10 miles to go. Before I crashed, I had pretty lofty goals going into the race, as I have been focused on it for 6 months and have felt confident about my training. There is also a fear of failure when you set big goals. Now if I am able to still toe the starting line, my attitude will be a lot different, and I’ll be grateful just to be there.