Not for the squeamish

Well, again, it’s been a while since the last post. So much has happened. I did manage to finish Nature Valley even though Stillwater was pretty tough. What a mean way to end a race. And then, to top it off I think the prize money for 6th place overall was like $100. That was totally worth it.

So I went home from nature valley, minus the Keen shoes that were stolen while I was racing the downtown crit on Friday night. I had a great week at home and was re-adjusting well to home life. I had to go to Rochester to race that NRC on Saturday but no worries cause it was a twilight race. That meant I could finally catch one of Trinity’s soccer games on Saturday morning. I should have known I was going to have a bad day when I slammed my own thumb in the car door on the way to soccer (Duh, left brain-right brain not communicating). It really hurt, in fact the whole hand hurt and I held it up the rest of the day. I dropped by the local pharmacy to get a splint after the game because I couldn’t touch it and I needed to be able to have some thumb function for the race in Rochester that evening. I should have heeded the thumb warning that this was going to be a less than stellar day.

So, I started the race and for the first two laps all went well, thumb splint was working and I was okay. Then on the third lap on the fast back straight a rider touched and rubbed wheels with the bike in front of her. Of course, I was beside the toucher and could see this developing while telling myself “move right, move right, get away from falling bike rider!!” I didn’t get away soon enough and she caught me on the way down pulling me down too. Kaboom! I hit my face, which is the worst. I’m no model so I wasn’t overly scared of ruining my face but it’s just so obvious when you get road rash on your face, plus it stings like hell. The other thing was, my nose hurt. It hurt so bad it would radiate up into my head for a week afterwards giving me headaches. I also hit my elbow pretty hard and my hip. When I looked at the hip while changing I was like “yes! No road rash!” My shorts weren’t even ripped!

I was happy until about an hour and a half later when I realized I had some foreign object growing on my hip. It was FREAKY. It was totally numb and out to HERE! The colour was starting to come in too, a nice eggplant colour. Very pretty. So much for the bikini for a while. Anyway, jumped into the car to get going home, only 2 and a ½ hour drive. I iced the hip the whole way. All in vain. It got huge and all various colours. Below is a picture of it 4 days after the crash.

So, my doctor said maybe nationals wasn’t a great idea and I wouldn’t be at my best. ya, no kidding. This picture isn't even the worst of it. It looked awful when it was just the impact spot of about 3-4 inches diameter sticking out like a melon. I must end this post now but there is so much more to write about. to be continued...