WELL, DANG.....

The stars are just plain aligned against me, I'll tell you what.

Now I've crashed my bike. Set out to do 10 miles, slipped on a railroad track. I barely had time to yelp before I heard this tremendous THWACK as my helmet hit the pavement and something skittering across the road (turned out to be my helmet mirror, yes, I wear a hokey helmet mirror.) I picked myself out from under my bike and off the road and ascertained that other than road rash on my shoulder and a little ache on the side of my head, and some aching/stinging on my thigh, I was OK. But my gear hanger was bent in between my spokes making the bike unrideable.

My husband came and got me, I washed the chain grease off my thighs and changed my clothes. The stinging ache under the leg of my bike shorts turned out to be a 5-inch diameter patch of road rash.

My ailing tendons escaped. No further damage there.

I took my bike in to the shop. The mechanic thinks he can straighten the hanger; if not, it'll only cost about $25 -- my Shimano Ultegra derailleur isn't damaged.

I'll need a new helmet; it has 4 dents in it. I'm glad I was wearing a helmet. I'm glad a car wasn't coming. I'm glad a train wasn't coming.

I've ridden across those and dozens of other tracks hundreds of times and never slipped. I still don't know what happened.

Oh, well. I'm OK, the bike can be fixed, and a helmet is easily replaced. But I hurt. My whole arm aches and my road rash burns. Could've been worse.

PRETENDING I'M STILL AN ATHLETE

You might want to read the post before this one for a few words of background.

So I biked my permitted 10 miles and... no pain, even though I got courageous (or rebellious) and got out of my granny gears. I just kept my toes pointed down so my tendons wouldn't get pulled on. Cut 5 minutes off my time. Whoopee.

Then I hopped into the campground pool and started swimming laps. It's a 20-yard pool so turns come frequently. Since I am not a fast swimmer, normally it takes me between a minute and 1:05 to traverse the 40 yards. Today they were all in the 55-57 second range. I've been watching the underwater shots of the Olympic swimmers. I kicked harder and put in more of a glide.

Original intent was 45 minutes. But suddenly at 20 minutes I decided I wanted out. So I got out.

Now my calves are stiff, I can tell I did something, but my tendons don't hurt.

~Sigh~ It's not enough to make me feel happy, though...

PIT

Western Macdonnels-Standley Chasm

from TravelBlog.org

My tendons had a setback -- I jumped up and ran after a departing RV whose storage door had popped open unseen by the driver. He never did see me and I re-injured myself. The right one is swollen and tender again. My physical therapist commented that it's hard to think about getting it healed and getting me back in condition to start the AT in the spring.

Our son and his wife of 11 years (and girlfriend since she was 14 and he was 17, 15 years total) are splitting up.

I'm trying to find two relay-team members for SavageMan -- a biker and runner -- so that at least I can do the swim portion. I have a probable biker but we're still out a runner. The triathlon is a month away. Time is running short. But I'm losing my motivation. I'm losing conditioning and feel like I don't even really care. Swimming is boring, I can't run or even walk (more than I need to just to get around), my biking is limited to 10 miles in granny gears.

Which I'm going to go out and do now.

MOUNTAINS OF BLOG POSTS

My friend Karen (Downhill Nut) sent me this:





If you've read my couple of recent posts about internet addiction, and know I'm planning to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail....

...then you'll understand why I had to print it out, on good paper, at best quality, for framing!