After getting all pumped up for training and mentally ready to start building toward being Iron, I had a rough week. I should have expected this. Training is full of ups and downs and who am I to expect that I could have actually go for a while without a bad training week or day. Of course I was on an up, so a down must be coming soon. And it did.
Tuesday I went to my bike class, and I was ready to rumble. I was just finishing up my warm I felt something funny with my tire, I thought I just wasn’t calibrated right on the machine but no, I actually had a flat. Yipee. So I changed it and got back on the bike. Then I had to go to the bathroom really badly. So during the 4 minutes “easy” where we were recovering from the ride I got off to go the bathroom. Well, in between the bathroom and my bike I slipped (yes, I love my cleats) and fell, bruising my tailbone and my ego. I had fallen in front of 15 other athletes, yippee, I was so embarrassed that I could barely answer coach when she asked me if I was ok. I crawled off to the bathroom where I pulled myself together. Of course the next day happen to be one of the 10 times a year that I have to drive out to the burbs for a work meeting and the bruised tailbone didn’t do to well that day.
Then on Saturday I was riding in Madison and I was about 5 miles into my 2nd loop when All of sudden I found myself in the middle of the road with my bike on top of me. I’m still not sure exactly what happened but some how my rear wheel actually popped out of my bike leaving me to literally just fall over (while going about 15 mph). I was thankfully with Paula, a training buddy from my Ironman group who was the best thing a girl could ask for. For a few minutes I just sat in the middle of the road. I was really cought off guard. One moment I was riding, the next I was lying on the road with a bruised elbow, knee and hand. I think she recognized that physically I was probably ok, but that I was more just freaked out. It’s pretty scary to have your bike just fall from underneath you. Paula told me she would do what I wanted to do. I could turn back and go to my car, or I could keep going. At that point a car had stopped for me and they were asking to drive me back to my car (did I mention that people in Wisconsin are the nicest people in the world, I’ve always thought this of them, and this incident only further enforced that belief
After about 10 minutes of me trying to figure out if anything was broken, if my bike was ok and if I could keep going I decided I would keep going. I figured I was just a sore and that with time, the soreness would go away. I had 8.5 miles to Mt. Horeb Madison Mt. Horeb and if I needed I could call her to pick me up (that’s a fib ‘cause my friend lives in Fitchburg , the complete opposite direction of Mt. Horeb Mt. Horeb Mt. Horeb
I tried to think of happy thoughts but it was hard. I told myself “What about Erika, she flipped over her handle bars with 56 miles left on the bike. Then she proceeded to run a marathon and it wasn’t until she had walked across the finish line till she got her stiches. If she can do it, so can you”. I also thought about other athletes who have bad crashes and still get through races. The fact of the matter was though, this wasn’t race day. I didn’t give up, I pushedf hard for a while. In fact, that 8 mile ride took me almost on hour. On the way back the 13 miles total took me 1:13 to complete. I got back to my car and I just couldn’t wait to sit down. My right leg was really super sore for the two days afterward, meaning I must have really favored that leg. Ironically my abs were also extremely sore also.
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