Monday, June 24, 2013

The crash heard round the...well nobody really heard it

Well its race week again and I was really excited coming into this week.  It was finally time to stop dwelling on my last bad race and focus on this one.  But all that changed Saturday around 3:50pm EST.

Leo and I had planned to do a workout together. I was going to ride about 40-50 miles and he was going to do a 20 mile ride followed by a 5 mile run.  The timing worked out perfectly.  By the time I would finish my bike,  Leo would be just about be finished with his run and we'd meet back at my car.

So after driving to our designated start location, we headed out together for the bike.  Once I jumped on my bike, I knew something wasn't right.  I didn't have my pre-workout drink packed so I didn't have my normal caffeine buzz but I figured that was alright.  As Leo and I started to bike a few miles together (I would leave him at about mile 3-4), my water bottle popped off my bike from my aero bars and fell out on the road.  That was the second bad sign of the day.  So after I picked up my bottle from the side of the road, I caught up to Leo.  Once I got to him, I screamed out  "see you in 2 hours!".

Well, we didn't quite get to 2 hours before I needed to see him again.

My ride was going great.  I rode this route 2 weeks ago so I was somewhat familiar with it and my speed was a little faster than 2 weeks ago and the ride felt a little easier so I was enjoying it.  I got to about mile 16 or so and got to a point where the road goes over a highway.  The road splits with cars trying to merge onto the highway heading left and the regular road staying right.  It's not the best of places and a lot of people ahve even said that.  I slowed down so I could take it easy and nothing would happen.  Apparently this was a bad move.  Some car came around the corner speeding up to get on the highway and caused me to swerve out.  It looked like a bad motorcycle accident.  I slid across the road sideways on my bike.  I became unclipped and was laying in the middle of the ground with my bike laying right next to me.  Everything happened in slow motion. I knew something bad was going on.  As I got up, I started to take inventory of everything.  At this point a car came by and gave me a look like "can you get out of the middle of the road".  Like it's my fault I'm laying on the ground in pain.  He didn't even stop and ask if I was ok.  Just gave me a nasty look and drove off.  I grabbed my bike and got it to the side of the road. I noticed my water bottle laying in the middle of the street so I had to run and get in.

What I saw next wasn't pretty.  There was pretty much blood everywhere.  My right hand had a cut on the palm, cut all up and down the whole arm, and my pinkie was scary.  The cuts on my arm were white and red.  I thought there was a chance that I got down to the bone.  Luckily I didn't so moved on to look at my pinkie.  This was the scariest of all the injuries.  I had a flap of skin hanging and knew there was a good possibility that I might need stitches.  It was bleeding pretty bad.  Next up was my left side.  My left palm was just as bloody as my right wrist, my knuckles looked like I got into a fight, my shoulder was cut up pretty bad.  Both my left and right hips had some bruises and cuts.  On top of everything, my shorts now had some rips in them.  That just sucks. 

Left palm at the doctor's office.  A little bruised

Nasty thumb 2 days later


I went into my saddle bag and took my phone out to call Leo.  Looking at the time, I figured he would be somewhere near my car and would need him to come and get me.  He picked up the phone and knew something was wrong.  I explained what happened and told him I was fine, but I felt bad but he needs to come get me.  He was 6 miles on the bike from the my car so I told him not to rush (I didn't want him getting into a crash or accident with my car).  Since he was going for a brick workout and had to store his gear and bike after his ride, he had a spare set of my car keys (lucky).  I told Leo where I was and told him I would start to try and ride back to him and we'd meet in the middle.  He yelled at me not to, but I wanted to see if I could ride and knew that it would save some time.

So I jumped on my bike, and started to ride back.  My left wrist started to hurt and this scared me a bit.  The last thing I needed was a broken or fractured wrist.  more on that in a bit.  I was able to ride a little bit without problems.  I was a little gun shy about riding so didn't really want to push myself and wanted to make sure I didn't fall again.  There was also blood dripping all over my bike.  Thankfully about 2 miles after the crash I saw a mechanic shop and stopped there.  I asked if I can use the bathroom to wash off my cuts to prevent infection.  You know my cuts are bad when the mechanics were a little grossed out by what they saw.  They let me use their bathroom so I washed up, cleaned what I could and hopped back on my bike.  About 20 minutes later, Leo and I met up and we put my bike on my car rack and headed back to the bike store.

I dropped my bike off at the shop and told them what happened.  The guys at Strictly Bicycles in Fort Lee, NJ are class act.  They cleaned my cuts, bandaged me up and looked over my bike.  Since I'm still under the year warranty, they took in my bike and are giving it a full tune up.  Hopefully, they don't find any huge issues and its just cosmetic and will only cost me the price of changing the bar tape.  I'll be picking up my bike Tuesday  from them.  There were definitely some scrapes and bruising to my bike.  I hate this.  If I can't race good, I at least want my bike to look pretty. 

So after coming home, showering, cleaning up and icing, and having to hear the wife explain to me that I'm "never biking on that road again", it was time to go to sleep.  Sunday came and went of the same as Saturday night.  A lot of bandages changed, the wife telling me how stupid I am, and some pain.  I couldn't get my long run in for the week but I'll take the recovery one week for the big picture victory.  My wrist was still bothering me so I said (after being forced by the wife) that if its still bad, I'll get it checked out Monday,  So today I went to the doctor and got some X-rays.  My wrist is a bit swollen, black and blue but I can move it, bend it and grab things.  Either way, I wanted it checked out just to be safe.  Thankfully, no breaks or anything major.  Just a slight stretching of the ligaments when I landed on my wrist.  The doc said I can continue doing my normal training and the pain is just going to come from the cuts and cruises.  Plus its going to sting like a motha when I go in the pool. 


So now, it's game on.  I'm hoping this week will let my body heal and I can fully participate in next weeks race.  I might wear a wrist guard just in case, but I don't think that will slow my swim down so much.  Only one way to find out, right?

So with that, here are some pictures of my injuries.  If you are squeamish, look away, but in some ways, its a lot better than it could be but the pictures don't give the cuts any justice.  They are worse than the pictures show
Right arm 2 days later
(and Thunder trying to sneak in the pic)


Left shoulder looking like Batman
(that is my wife and I's first date movie, coincidence?)
Left hip bruised
(had to block out other things that are close by)

Right arm and wrist (it looks worse today)



3 comments:

  1. nasty fall! one word - neosporin... get well soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yup. 9W right where it goes over 87. around the Nyack area. Horrible exit

    ReplyDelete