I am currently sitting in the airport in Austin, TX waiting for my flight to Denver, CO. I am off for a few days to check out the city of Boulder! Hope it's good fun.
So I was in Austin to races a few crits and do 2 athlete days. Only ended up racing 1 crit and doing 1 athlete day because I decided to throw myself on the ground and re break my right collar bone. Literally in the middle of the crit course on one of the straights was a stop sign in the road with hay bales at the base. Every lap, chicks would go to the left and right of it. I figured the race was going to come down to a bunch sprint by the way the sprinters teams were riding. So I decided to just sit in the whole time, conserve energy. As I am sitting in toward the back (dumb), we come around the 2nd corner and a chick in front of me heads straight for the stop sign. At the last moment she jumps to the left, where my front wheel is and wipes me out. I crash hard on my right side re breaking my collar bone & bustin up my helmet. Wreck right in front of a bar where tons of people are sitting around drinking & watching the races. It bet for the intoxicated spectators it was a good show. Some nice woman from the bar helps me get untangled from the bike and get situated. After a short stay in the ER, end up leaving the hospital with my arm in a sling, a piece of paper with saying 4-6 weeks healing time, and a big bottle of Viccodine ES (extra strength... yeahhhhhh, not muckin around here!)
Well I reckon it was about time for a break anyway, so I am not too worried about the time off. I needed about 2 weeks off to rest & regroup. So I just plan on hopping on the trainer for a few weeks and gettin' back to it. Honestly this time is way better than when I broke both my collar bones a few months back. At least this time I have 1 good arm! And it's way less painful this time because the break was not as bad.
Austin, TX.. I don't hate it! It was actually a pretty cool city. Tons of young people living and working here. Great food and the riding was pretty spiffy. The host house we stayed at was awesome, the guy was really good about showing us around the town. Most host housing I have experienced is a bit like business, typically the people show us our room, give us towels, give us a spare key & say, "if you need anything else let us know" and that's that. This guy, Chris who rides for a local race team in Austin, Velossimo, was super cool and took us out on the town, hung around with us when we weren't training or racing, and even took us out to a local bunch ride. Good times, I have decided to add Austin to the list of places I want to live.
The next month for me looks pretty dull which I am not complaining about. It's gettin' too hot to train anyhow! I'll be back in Tallahassee next week and look forward to trips to the springs & seeing friends. If you want to hang out and do things that don't involve moving your arms much, I am game. This means pretty much all my other hobbies like roller-coaster rides, going to sporting events & doing "the wave", hand stand competitions, and bench pressing contests are out of the question as of now...
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Nature Valley Grand Bust
So if you have not figured this out, my blog is a place where I like to complain about my life that's really not bad, but I like to pretend things are a lot worse than they really are and bitch about them on the internet... so let my complaining commence!
The lesson I have learned is that sitting at races & watching, is way less fun than actually racing them. One of my least favorite feelings is feeling like I am the weakest link. Well that is exactly the way I feel right about now.. I was given an awesome opportunity to ride with a women's team for Nature Valley & just completely f-ed it up. The first day was a crit that was a total crash fest because of the poor weather, tight turns, man-hole covers galore, and the 140+ field of women squeezed on to the course. I managed to stay upright. But by the 10th lap of the 30 lap crit, I sat up because I seriously had trouble distinguishing the front of the field from the back as Kristen Armstrong lapped the field, crashes in every corner, and chicks just getting popped left & right. Luckily no one on Advil got hurt, the race promoters decided to not count this race as a stage, and I had another opportunity to grow some.
Next day, 65 mile road race with a finish that consisted of a 5 lap, 2 mile circuit. So line up on the 2nd line of the start (thinking sweet position today! I started about 3/4 the way back the day before which sucked pretty much) At 5:30PM, we're off! Until 20 seconds later when the lead car forgets to turn. The whole field turns around, now I am at the back. It's a bit of a chase to get back into the field. Once I am settled a bit, I check my Navigator and it's 110 arrow pointing straight down and the projected low is alarming at me. I think to my self, are you effing kidding me??? At the start of the race, I was 150, arrow pointing straight across. I start eating dex4 glucose tabs and drink gatorade. Ugh, the feeling of no power and like I am about to pass out starts to take over. After about 15 min I am totally dunzo... out! I get into the team car chug a coca-cola and feel like a total failure.
Pretty much this week sucks. What makes it even worse is I still have to stay with Advil until Monday when I fly out to Texas and I just feel like a waste of space that can't pedal a bike. I totally flew all the way to Minnesota to do maybe 30 min of racing total and now get to sit around for 3 days watching the chicks race and feeling like a dumbass. Yeahhhh, bike racin & diabetes!
Well folks, off to TX on Monday for some athlete days & racin, maybe I can redeem myself or I'll do something stupid again.. either way I'll be hangin with illegal immigrants and Lance in Austin! yeah!
The lesson I have learned is that sitting at races & watching, is way less fun than actually racing them. One of my least favorite feelings is feeling like I am the weakest link. Well that is exactly the way I feel right about now.. I was given an awesome opportunity to ride with a women's team for Nature Valley & just completely f-ed it up. The first day was a crit that was a total crash fest because of the poor weather, tight turns, man-hole covers galore, and the 140+ field of women squeezed on to the course. I managed to stay upright. But by the 10th lap of the 30 lap crit, I sat up because I seriously had trouble distinguishing the front of the field from the back as Kristen Armstrong lapped the field, crashes in every corner, and chicks just getting popped left & right. Luckily no one on Advil got hurt, the race promoters decided to not count this race as a stage, and I had another opportunity to grow some.
Next day, 65 mile road race with a finish that consisted of a 5 lap, 2 mile circuit. So line up on the 2nd line of the start (thinking sweet position today! I started about 3/4 the way back the day before which sucked pretty much) At 5:30PM, we're off! Until 20 seconds later when the lead car forgets to turn. The whole field turns around, now I am at the back. It's a bit of a chase to get back into the field. Once I am settled a bit, I check my Navigator and it's 110 arrow pointing straight down and the projected low is alarming at me. I think to my self, are you effing kidding me??? At the start of the race, I was 150, arrow pointing straight across. I start eating dex4 glucose tabs and drink gatorade. Ugh, the feeling of no power and like I am about to pass out starts to take over. After about 15 min I am totally dunzo... out! I get into the team car chug a coca-cola and feel like a total failure.
Pretty much this week sucks. What makes it even worse is I still have to stay with Advil until Monday when I fly out to Texas and I just feel like a waste of space that can't pedal a bike. I totally flew all the way to Minnesota to do maybe 30 min of racing total and now get to sit around for 3 days watching the chicks race and feeling like a dumbass. Yeahhhh, bike racin & diabetes!
Well folks, off to TX on Monday for some athlete days & racin, maybe I can redeem myself or I'll do something stupid again.. either way I'll be hangin with illegal immigrants and Lance in Austin! yeah!
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