Sunday, May 22, 2011

Crash update

It's been an interesting week of healing. I stayed out of the pool due to the open wounds. Most of them could have been covered, but the gash in my hand was uncoverable. It is pretty much closed up now so I should be able to get back in the swing of things this week.

I ran Tuesday and felt o.k. doing so. Wed was a bike day and although my ankle hurt, I was able to ride o.k. Thursday my ankle was inflamed and swollen. The wound looked clean, but it was red all around it and it hurt to the touch. It was also warm to the touch. My wife saw it and started freaking out telling me that I needed to call the doctor. I told her I thought it was just part of the healing process. So, I biked again Thursday as running was out of the question. Thursday's bike was real good - pumped out some good wattage. Friday came along and ankle felt better in the morning, but as the day went on it became swollen and inflamed just like the day before. I tried to run on it when I got home and it was way too painful - I made it about 200 feet and quit. I was bummed because Shamrock is Sunday and it is the first race of the season for me and I really did not want to miss it. So Saturday comes around and I call the Doctor. Explained what it looked like and how it felt and she agreed with me that it part of the healing process; however, she prescribed an antibiotic just in case.

Oh the difference a day makes. The ankle felt much better Saturday and I rode 30 and ran 6.5 on it with no problem.

Sunday (today) I did the Shamrock Du. I would not say that it was my finest race but it was pretty damn good considering the week I had. My time was slightly slower than last year, but the bike course was slightly altered due to road construction - don't know if that added anything or not. They made it sound like the distance was the same. I was also more tentative cornering due to my recent crash. I'm waiting for the official results to get posted as I am curious as to my splits and how they compare to last year.

As an aside - I practiced leaving my pedals on the bike and putting my feet in the shoes while riding. Practice conditions and race conditions - two totally different things. I failed miserably and lost some time with this - twenty to thirty seconds easy. I'm sticking to running with my bike shoes on. I admit getting out of transition was very fast, but getting going on the bike took longer - there was no time savings for me, quite the contrary.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Crashed hard!

Riding a 25 mile route Sunday - a route I've ridden a hundred times. Crossing railroad tracks and hit them just right (wrong actually) and went down hard. Bruised and battered all the way up my right side. Good gash in the palm of my hand as well. Believe it or not I was going to finish my ride, but I was having trouble gripping the bars and did not want to bleed all over my bike so I went home. After I cleaned up and assessed the damage I decided to bag the run I had planned as well. It is two days later and I am very sore - nothing serious, just lots of road rash and couple of bruises, but it definitely slows you down.

Going to attempt to run tonight. Sometimes getting active again helps and some times it aggravates - I'm hoping for helps because I don't want to be a bystander.