Everything happens for a reason, people change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they're right, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can come together. -- Marilyn Monroe
Well, the LoneStar 70.3 didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to finish. My 70.3 turned into a 24.7, and then I was done. I managed the swim pretty well (I found out later I had improved the swim from last year by a little over 5 minutes!) but the ride? – not so much… I was on the outbound leg, about 23 ½ miles into the ride, and facing the headwind all the way out. I was a couple miles short of the turnaround at the cell tower, just about to get off the bridge at San Luis Pass, and really looking forward to turning around and getting that tailwind on the way back. I went from looking up and seeing the tower in front of me, to looking up at an EMS tech… and not knowing what happened in between. From what we can figure out, one of my wheels caught in a groove in the road, and I went over the front of the bike and falling to the right. Fortunately there were no other riders about to pass me, so I am happy that I didn’t ruin somebody else’s day. My bike went head over heels to some degree, because looking at it afterward, the only damage was to the shifters on the ends of the aero bars. My helmet, sunglasses, gloves and jersey were not quite as fortunate. All brand new for the event, all were totaled as a result of the impact, but all did the job for which they were intended, so I am okay with the loss. In the process of hitting the road, I managed to split my upper lip. I was completely out for some period of time. A rider about 200 yards behind me said I went down real hard, real fast. He stopped the first policeman he found and told him to call an ambulance.
So after a trip to UTMB and getting stitched up, clean cat scan and xrays, I was discharged and able to go back to the race. The race support had brought my bike back to the transition area, and Jeff had packed all my stuff up for me. We looked to see if the last of my friends had finished and then packed all the stuff in the truck for the trip home.
This past week has been really slow for me, in that I was not able to do any workouts, just sitting around trying to heal. Tomorrow I will get the stitches out of my lip and hopefully cleared to start back up with the training. Ironman Kansas 70.3 is about 2 months away, and I want to be ready, at least to finish…
My brother-in-law calls it retro grade amnesia, where the body decides "you don't REALLY want to know about this!" and blocks out the 15-20 minutes surrounding the accident. And after seeing the deep scratches in the right lens of my sunglasses, the body probably made the right decision!
Everything DOES happen for a reason… I appreciate that I was able to finish last year, and I am excited that my swim time improved as much as it did. Another plus? It didn’t happen AFTER having to run 13.1 miles J…
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