CRASH!!!

It was all going too well. Last week was a tough week with 3 hours of training most days and plenty of lactate threshold intervals but I was just about managing to get through it all. Saturday was my last long ride before Lake Placid with Sunday a triathlon day consisting of short swim, 2 hour bike and 1:45 run. The rest of this week was also meant to be fairly intense with only a short taper before the Ironman.

The Saturday long ride was going well. I went out for 3.5 hours before coming back to the house to refuel. I was holding a good pace and felt pretty good. I decided to swap from my tri bike to my road bike to give myself a break from the aero position for the last couple of hours. I was about 25 minutes from the house on a local bike trail when everything turned upside down, literally.

I was happily cruising along at a steady 20mph+ when I looked down and realised that I was very close to the edge of the trail. The trail was 3 inches of tarmac laid on top of dirt so there was a big drop at either side. I looked at the drop and tried to gently bring the bike back to the left but like a rabbit in the headlights I couldn't stop myself and the front wheel dropped off the edge of the trail and dug in immediately cartwheeling me off the bike.



I am not sure exactly what happened. I have a cut on my nose which I think means that my head hit the ground and pushed my glasses into the bridge of my nose but bizarrely I couldn't find a single scratch on my helmet. My bike was 20 feet away on the other side of the trail and I also landed on my shoulder and back judging by the scrapes, bruises and holes in my shirt. A gentlemen out walking and a lady pushing a baby both came to ask if I was OK and the guy had seen me come off and seemed impressed by the show I had put on.

I was telling them both that I was OK but I was still lying on the grass at the edge of the trail where I had rolled to after I came to a stop and I decided that I needed to stand up. As I got up I realised how sore my groin was. I called Wendy and arranged to meet at the next road to intersect the trail. As I hobbled down the trail I realised just how sore my groin was and it appears as if the kinetic energy generated by a 164 pound man travelling at 20mph was all dissipated through my groin into the stem of my bike.

Long story short I experienced some of the most excruciating pain I can remember and had to fight back waves of nausea. I got into bed where I remained the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday. After 36 hours of ice treatment and Ibuprofen I was able to hobble into work for half a day today.

So what does it all mean.

I have spoken to Holden and I am to rest today and tomorrow and then we will see if I can get back into the pool on Wednesday. He assures me that fitness wise I will be OK however I know it would have helped my race if I had been able to complete these last few hard workouts and transition simulations.

I have spoken to the makers of my wheels, Rolf Prima, and it is going to cost me $240 to get my front wheel rebuilt. I have not looked at the rest of my road bike as it will probably end in tears and I will face that ordeal later.

I am healing up OK. My hobble is speeding up and I am able to move around a bit now. Thankfully nothing is broken and although I am very stiff and sore as long as nothing is strained I should be OK for the race.

Although I am pretty down at the moment it could have been a lot worse. I still see people on the trail on road bikes without helmets which is daft and I am also glad that I had my mobile phone with me or it could have been a bit of a drama getting home.

It is apparently not all that uncommon for accidents to happen in the last couple of weeks and at least it happened now and not next week. I am no stranger to bike accidents and anyone who rides a road bike at speed for long enough is likely to have some sort of accident but it is still pretty shitty timing on my behalf.