Don't let anyone mess you up

"Don't let anyone mess you up, not even me."

I got word a few weeks ago that my old triathlon coach, David Lapoff, died.  He was the most intelligent, passionate person I've ever encountered.  So knowledgeable, always had an answer to my obscure questions and injuries.  Just an all-around great source of knowledge and support.  Such a tragic loss.

It's been an up and down few weeks with my hamstring issue (since Cherry Blossom), and I got to thinking about how, as an athlete, I need to take responsibility for myself.  He wisely told me, when he started coaching me, "don't let anyone mess you up, not even me" and I've really taken those words with me.  It takes a really genuine coach to say something like that.  

At first I wanted so badly to email him and tell him about my issues, and I got really upset when I realized I can't do that anymore.  All I can do is take his words, take responsibility for myself, and make sure that no one messes me up.  For you, DL.

The Counter-Attack

I'm from the school of thought where bike races should be hard, and I like trying to make them hard.

Today was my first road race in 3 weeks because of my crash, and I was feeling pretty crappy when I got on my bike after yesterday's TT (my first sustained effort in about 3 weeks).  Our race was separate 1/2 women with 5 laps, 5 times up a 1k climb.  The first time up it, I thought "oh no this isn't good," legs don't feel good.

I attacked a number of times during the race.  Realistically, there was only one person I was truly concerned about with the uphill finish, and of course she won, I got 2nd.  I attacked on the flats.  I went with a move on the climb.  I attacked some more on the flats.  I was really surprised with how little interest the others had in counter attacking.  Come on, people!  That is the golden ticket!  In retrospect, maybe I should have counter-attacked myself.

I don't get the concept of saving all your matches.  I know I have a lot of matches, and I use them wisely (or at least more wisely than I used t0).  I now have a better feel for how many I can burn, and I didn't feel like any of my attacks today jeopardized my chances at the finish.  I know my chances of winning are much higher if I'm in a breakaway, so I like to do whatever I can to make that happen.  Really today came down to positioning and a little bit of confusion.  Anyway, I am happy with the effort I put in today.  Looking at the big picture, I had a great day, built more fitness than the others, and I had fun.   Good to be back!

I also find it somewhat comical when people yell into the wind.  I've started not listening to anything anyone tells me in bike races, but it's really great when I can't even hear what they are yelling about.  

The Plague

Apparently, I am very allergic to saw dust.  We are in the process of expanding next door at work, and the saw dust was killing me yesterday.  I sounded like I had the plague.

My asthma has always been difficult to understand.  I took meds for awhile, but none of them really helped.  Now I don't take anything, and it's generally ok, but if I am around dust, cats, mold, drink too much milk, or eat some mysterious food ingredient that I have yet to identify, I sound like I have the plague.

My shoulder appears to be gradually improving.  The pain changed today - instead of a localized pain, it moved down my arm a little bit, like the fluid is draining.  I can only hope.  I will try to ride tomorrow outside.

It also appears that there is some debate over how the crash at Cherry Blossom happened.  My interpretation was that I ran out of gas, started slowing down before the last 2 corners, and then the person next to me on the inside didn't hold her line and caused me to crash.  Others say that I hit the corner too hot and tried to turn my bike too sharply, taking myself out.  This explanation doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because I was going slower than everyone else.  Perhaps I did take myself out, I don't really know. I knew going into that corner that I wasn't in a good situation, and I've learned a lot from my mistakes. 

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have the sharpest crit skills (I just haven't done that many with big fields and I haven't been racing nearly as long as the others.  Even if I did all the summer crits in Michigan, it wouldn't have prepared me for the racing around here).  It's something I'm working on, it's gotten a lot better, and it will continue to get better.   

Things I can't Believe

1.  That women, and I guess men too, can upgrade to cat 3 without ever doing a crit.  It seems completely unacceptable to me that your first crit can in a pro/1/2/3 race.  

2.  Belltown.  An area of Seattle unlike any other, it's like being in a parallel universe.  Full of those people who were never very cool in college, but now that they are young and wealthy, they can fake it.  Men in sparkly shirts and fancy blazers.  I'd imagine it would be fun to put on a show like that every weekend.   It's pretty entertaining to watch but not my thing at all.

3.  Chocolate bunnies.  Why are they so good?!    

Easter Basket

My mother spoiled me as a child and basically up until a few years ago.  I always got these huge Easter baskets filled with a bunch of crap that I would never need.  

Bunnies that poop candy.  Easter themed Kelly  dolls (Barbie's little sister).  Gigantic chocolate Easter bunnies.  Easter barrettes.  Sometimes I'd even get something practical like a pen or Shout Wipes.

But one day I told her not to give them to me anymore because most of the stuff was useless.  Since then, though, I miss them.  And I always secretly wish for an Easter basket.

Or even an Easter egg hunt!  My sister and I would always wear our tennis shoes to Easter brunch at the country club so that we could run faster in the Easter egg hunt.  We'd plow through everyone and get those damn golden eggs.  Hell yeah we did!

In other news, the shoulder, in fact, feels worse today.   I'm not sure if it's from the riding or from lifting stuff at work.  I'm losing my motivation a little bit because I'm having trouble balancing this; PT says it's ok to do tempo, but I haven't shown any real signs of progress since Monday.  I know I will be fine once I can start training for real again, but until then, I'm in this weird state of limbo where my body says REST and everyone else says its ok to GO.   On top of that, I had about 4 shitty/mentally taxing weekends in a row.  I know it will only take one good day to turn it all around, so I just have to hang on til then.  I just want to be pain-free because I can't mentally (or physically for that matter) devote myself 100% to training or racing when I can't freakin pedal out of the saddle or turn my freakin steering wheel. 

Man does that pendulum swing in the sport of cycling.  

The Reality

"It's worse than we originally thought."
"What do you mean?"
"We're going to have to amputate."

Not really, but it is worse than I originally thought. No one ever told me this before, but I guess inflammation/water makes muscle disintegrate. I went to the PT yesterday, and he said that there is so much inflammation that my shoulder muscle is just turning to mush. Mush, doggy, mush mush.

This is partly my fault because I ran out of ibuprofen, so I haven't taken any since Sunday.

So this means no racing this weekend (which I'm not too bummed about missing 2 crits) and lots of trainer riding for awhile mainly because if I were to crash again, I'd be in big trouble.

The good news is that there is nothing really wrong with my shoulder. It's just fat and puffy.

People have been so very nice. Thanks for all the concern and well-wishes!

The Pieces Come Together

A few days have passed since my crash, and I've had a few revelations:

1. It never occurred to me as I was laying on the ground that I was a. on the road and b. impeding the start of the men's race.  I also didn't realize how long I was on the ground for.  This makes me think that I did, indeed, have a concussion.  I *could* have gotten up, but I was happy laying on the ground, and I didn't think anything of it. That's never happened before.

2. I do have my skinsuit and my race numbers.  I thought they were thrown away.  Looking at my skinsuit now, I see why people laughed when I got mad that they cut it.

3. My shoulder hurts.  A lot.  It didn't hurt after I crashed, and it didn't start hurting until Sunday night, but now I can't climb out of the saddle or pull on the bars.  Hope it gets better soon.

4.  Road rash makes you fat!  Yesterday I was 7 lbs heavier than I normally am.  I must have a lot of inflammation.  

My Silly Ambulance Ride

Well, the crit didn't go so well.

I drank some coffee a few hours before, which got my mojo back, and I was excited for the crit.  4 corner, wide, nice.  I felt good during warmup, no problem with the hamstring.  I even got a call up because I was 5th overall.

The race was going fine, I was feeling a little nervous but not too bad considering there were 50 people in our race.  On the last lap, as we came by the finish line, I heard Jen yell "go!"  so I went to start the leadout.  This is the first real leadout I've done, and as you can imagine, I messed it up.  I went too fast, and halfway down the back stretch, I died.  People started passing me, and I was still slowing down coming into the final corner.

I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden, I was sliding out.  I've heard from others that someone behind me hit my wheel, which seems like the best explanation.  I laid on the ground for awhile as blood gushed out of my elbow.

This is where the ridiculous part started.  I was fine, just some road rash and I was just comfortable laying on the ground.  Lesson 1: If you can get up, DO IT.  They began cutting off my brand new skinsuit! NOO not the skinsuit!!  Then they started putting me in a neck brace and getting me ready for the stretcher.  Stretcher?! But I'm fine!  Then they duct taped my head to the stretcher, strapped me down, and towed me away in an ambulance.   I was laughing at them the whole time because it was completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

I got to the hospital, and they said the doctor would look at me after I was all cleaned up.  They asked me what kind of pain meds I wanted, and I said I don't know, so they gave me a shot of morphine in my ass.  Morpine?  I just fell off my bike, guys, I was hardly even in pain.  I also had hit my head fairly hard, so you'd think this wouldn't be a smart thing to give me...  

They cleaned me up and discharged me.  The doctor didn't even look at me.  He thought I might need stitches in my elbow and I assumed they would check me out for a concussion, but nope, they sent me home with a half-assed bandage job.  What a waste of my time and money.

I was feeling fine today, and I wanted to race, but my caring teammates wouldn't let me.  They are probably right, because my shoulder and neck are hurting more as the day goes on.  I am just bummed because the race would have been fun and I think I would have done well.  Oh well.  There will be more.

Some of the others who crashed didn't fare so well.  I hope they get better fast!

Suffer Much?

Yep. Everyday.

Here I am in the Dalles, OR for the Cherry Blossom Stage race. What they forgot to mention is that the Dalles has no trees nor cherry blossoms, it just has WIND. Stage was was 55 miles of wind and a whole lot of pain. There were 25mph winds, and my Edges were getting blown around like crazy. On top of that, I was in a 7 person breakaway from the first mile or so. I kept thinking we would settled down after a lap, but no, we kept going hard the whole time. And it hurt the whole time.

The good news is that we put a bunch of time on the rest of the field. At the end, though, 3 people broke away right after I pulled through and I didn't have the legs to respond. I was feeling pretty crappy at the beginning of the race, and at the end, after I stopped for a few minutes, I couldn't pedal because it appears I strained my hamstring. No wonder I was hurting so much and couldn't sprint!

The TT was this morning, which didn't go so well for me. I was hesitant with my hamstring, so I didn't go as fast as I could/should have, but I didn't do too terribly. I am still sitting in 4th out of the 25 1/2s and 5th out of the 50 1/2/3s. It doesn't matter much anyway because tomorrow is going to be so difficult.

Tonight is the crit and tomorrow is one hell of a road race with some LONG climbs in it. I am excited for it as long as my hamstring is ok.

I was feeling super tired, and I realized it's because I forgot my coffee the last few days. I drank some, and I am rockin!

It's been fun hanging out with the team. We still need to get our first W.