Andrew and I went to South Sea-Tac trails to have fun and get some training in before the race on Wednesday. We played on the trails for a bit, then I practiced lofting my front wheel, which is really difficult. My wrist started to hurt a little, so I thought, "Ooh! There's that awesome dirt jump field I could go play in."
I trundled off to the dirt jump field and took a look around. I want to make a point of saying that there were jumps 3-5 feet tall with 3-5 feet drop offs and I thought....hrm. Those look a little advanced. So I scoped out the areas and picked a little mound, 1/2 the size of some of the ones I've done, with no drop off after it and a nice swooping down afterwards. I got up some speed and hit the jump....maybe going 10-15 miles per hour....and the next thing I know I'm belly sliding 10-15 feet. Even at the point of impact, I'm laughing in my head as I see my bike flying over me and landing another 5 feet in front of me.
I have no idea what happened to cause my wipe out. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't hold on to my bike.
The end result is some road rash on my forearms, which is the worse abrasiveness. I have some minor scratches/bruises on my lower stomach and upper thighs and some developing bruises on my lower legs. The worst of it, though, is the buised torso/ribs. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to laugh. It hurts. Period. And when the pain reliever wears off, it's not good. That and I think I've got some minor whiplash from my neck snapping backward. Again, once the pain reliever wears off, it hurts to turn my neck or move. The mild throbbing turns into acute pain. So I guess the end result is a first hand knowledge that wiping out hurts. However, it could have been MUCH worse. Basically I'm a little scraped up and a sore/bruised in places. Nothing's broken, no concusion, I could have cracked some ribs, and my bike is perfectly fine.
In my infinite wisdom (ha!) I decided I still wanted to try racing the next day. Throughout the course of Wednesday at work my ribs became more and more sore and the road rash less and less of a concern. I met Andrew at his place and we went out to the field. I pre-rode the course and ended up realizing how much pain I was in. I decided I'd race, but bail if it got to be really bad....and now I'm wondering what "really bad" means to me.
Anyway, there were a bunch of people in the beginner class and we all took off. I purposefully positioned myself in the back of the pack because I knew I was not going to be fast. I followed the last rider entering the course, but there was mass confusion as the start of the course wasn't laid out. People were milling around, turning back, and then branching off in several different directions. I ended up going back to the start and then telling Andrew I was bailing. The bruised ribs equal continual nausea and I was feeling like dirty nasty poop on a stick that had been put through a blender and then run over.
I ended up taking lots of pictures, riding around some more (SLOWLY), going to the dirt jump field to try to figure out what the hell went wrong, and chatting up some other girls that were there - ended up learning some really valuable knowledge about climbing from one of them. End of the night resulted in the pain medication wearing off and me being in a lot of pain.
I'm not sure how my training is going to be for the next few days or if I'll be able to race next Wednesday. Running's out of the question, as it's too much impact on my ribs and so is weight lifting. Biking is okay, but I have to go really slow and even that results in increased nausea, so I'm not sure what I'll be doing. All I really want to do right now is lay down. Paul's going on a mini-vacataion to San Fransisco to see a friend and have lunch with his parents, so I'll have the weekend to myself. Originally that was going to result with a lot of time spent on the bike. Now I'm rethinking that and considering spending the time writing at coffee shops.
Lance Armstrong:
"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."
"If you're worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on."
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