I AM Warrior

If all of the above is true, I am She-Ra! Okay, so I know there are a cyclists out there that are much more hard core and serious about this than I, but I want to tell my story. I'm making a serious effort at this fitness thing and actually starting to enjoy it. Yesterday Dave and I headed out for a late afternoon bike ride once the rain and wind went away. We decided to go for a round trip of 20 miles. Farther than I have gone up to this point in time. I was fine with it. Doing great, keeping it between 13 and 16 mph the whole trip. I don't know if that is fast or not but it was a good pace.

We are coming up on the 14 mile mark and are nearing a little town where we have to stop to cross a two lane town highway. I hadn't quite geared down yet but had stopped peddling. somehow I drifted off the trail onto the grass. No big deal, I think. I'll just turn my bike back onto the trail. That is where it fell apart. i was going fast enough and at enough of an angle that my front wheel caught on the edge of the pavement, causing my back wheel to come up and me to go ass end over tea kettle onto the pavement. I wailed, Dave turned around (he was about 20 feet ahead of me), came to make sure I was still moving. Everything moved, lots of throbbing, blood, pavement pieces, it was all good. Dave offered to ride back the last 6 miles, get the car and come back and get me. I'm too proud for that, so I picked myself up and got back on the horse...uhm, bike.

Damage total...major chunk missing from my right knee. It has been about 16 hours and it is still oozing. When we got back to town there was even a gnat stuck in it. I have a raised, bruised area with a bit of a scrape on the side of my left knee that looks oddly like my handlebar. The top of my left hand has two scrapes, one over the knuckles at the base of the second and third finger, one at the end of the wrist on the pinky side of my hand. I landed on the palm of my right hand, didn't break the skin but it is an odd maroonish color this morning. The scrapes on the back of my left hand are hurting the most. The knee won't stop oozing, but is getting tight. All in all, I'll live. I just feel like I fell off my bike. The good news is that I was wearing my helmet, I left a small part of the visor on the pavement as well. Glad it wasn't my forehead!

The worst part of the whole thing was the clean-up. Kudos to Dave for being a trooper. I do this weird hysterical laughing, tears down my face, swearing thing when I'm in severe pain. Washing the pavement and bugs out of the right knee was HORRIBLE! I had lidocaine at my house and needles but no syringes to pull it out of the bottle. So I mixed my normal saline and peroxide and started the soaking. Dave held me down to the bathtub edge by my shoulders, trying to distract me with a backrub. it mostly helped, I only came close to hyperventilating a couple times. I'm sure I was beyond gorgeous! Once the major pieces were cleaned up he even helped get the last few pieces out with q-tips. Afterwards, he grilled me hot dogs and brought me a drink.

This morning, I feel like I crashed my bike. From what we can tell, the bike is okay. No cracks in the helmet. The scrapes and scratches and bruises will go away. There WILL be pictures coming but I have to save them for Half Nekkid Thursday. They should be good!