So I've now had 2 weeks off of racing and I've really been enjoying the time at home, training, my own bed, and time to get my spring yard duties done. Spring is a bit of a crazy time of year for me since I continue to desire to have some landscaping and flowers around the house. Spring cleaning up on top of finding some long days in the saddle, to continue to build base, can lead to some late nights. I've decided to have a man mow my yard full-time this year which has really taken a load off and I'm thankful I can do that. This gives me a couple more hours in the week to do some other things that need done. As you can see from the picture above, one of these things was getting some hooks up in the garage to put wheels and tires on. I think I need a few more hooks to complete the deal. Its also a busy time for my birding activities as nesting is going on and territories are being established , so the feeders and nesting materials require some extra work.
Its also been nice to not be on the road so much. The nice weather has allowed me to pretty much commute by bike around town and to work, which I love doing. Especially since it is bike to work month. I haven't filled the gas tank in 2 weeks now! Nice. Of other note: KCV has partnered with 1000 Park Bake-afe in Winona Lake for Bike To Work Day on March 22 at 0700 to all who ride to work that morning to give away some special treats. I will be working in another city that day, but what a cool thing for my locals otherwise!
I've had a busy last 3 days of some fun training, coupled with some unexpected drama. I am actually stalling my time by blogging right now to give my body a little more rest before I head out to ride my last 3 hours of this training block that Drt Consulting has planned for me. I started my training Friday after work by doing a tough workout with my strength coach Darrell. I'm starting to feel really strong again core wise and I can really tell how connected my body is on the mountain bike because of it... but man are those workouts tough! I followed that by a early morning ride with the local group Saturday morning for a few hours. I then did tons of yard work that afternoon. I was exhausted, but I love tcb! Sunday morning, ground hog
day, I headed out for a epic mtb at Winona. I was able to meet up with Dave Strole and Josh J. for a lap. They were both flying and I was still trying to get my groove on. Cool to see my teammates riding so strong! After they headed home I settled into what I thought would be a nice, steady 3 more hours of riding on some perfect trail. At hour 2 that proved otherwise. I was flying down the goat trail hill to the bridge crossing and looped my bar end around some old trail fencing and found myself lying in a bank of dirt. It was one of those crashes that you don't even know what hit you and all you know is you are suddenly going to crash hard. I almost saved it by overcorrecting to not fly off the bridge, but ended up paving some new trail with my new xx gears. Not cool. I also flatted my front tire and was bummed to have to spend time fixing it before I could get back to riding. Anyway, bruised knee and elbows- no big deal. I have my crash out of the way so I can move on.
Well, not so quick there Nik. I enjoyed the rest of my ride and nearing my time on the trail that day I decided to light it up and head out of the last portion with some quickness. Well, seeing how's it was my ground hog day, that didn't work out. I railed a blind corner and found myself staring at a huge hog across the trail and me being the animal lover I am decided to swerve and miss it (I actually just did this out of instinct). It was a slow-mo crash and I knew I was heading for a tree and after that I knew I was heading for
an arrow trail marker, and then the ground. Yep, I ping- ponged off the tree with my bar, then tried to miss the post, which I mostly did, then slammed torso down to the ground. I simply was in the wrong place at the right time as they say. I gashed my calf on the plastic arrow, I think, and landed my back side on some forest, and knocked the breathe out of me on the ground. I laid there thinking I broke my ribs, but then after catching my breathe I was more just hoping I wasn't laying in poison ivy again, and I kinda had to laugh at the whole situation of the thing. So as I was looking at the poison ivy, I wandered what kind of plant has a bloody look to it. Oh, well, guess I'm spurting blood all over from my leg like Thor did from his arm that one year in Le Tour. Hmm, okay, guess I have to break out my old trauma ER knowledge and play EMT. Good thing it was cold that morning and I had my arm warmers in my pocket, they made a perfect tourniquet. That's another thing my Swiftwick products can do! I went down to the creek and cleaned off the bloody mess, saw that I could see the muscle hanging out, fixed my bike and headed home. I was just thankful this happened at the end of my ride and didn't interupt my training! Seriously.
I would have snapped a pic of the wound, but I didn't want to get blood all over my Iphone.
I went home and injected some lidocaine to take away the burn and thought I would close it myself, but one nice thing about working in anesthesia is that I know a few surgeons here and there, so why not have them fix it? I called my friend Dr Cook and he said he would be glad to fix me up and I met him at his OB/GYN office within the hour. Sure beats the ER. I know that sounds unfair to some people, but we put in a lot of crazy times together in surgery and we try the best we can to take care of each other and Dr Cook is man that follows this code. God only know how many gazillion sutures he has put in in his life, so a few more is no big deal. Anyway, he was going to put in a simple running stitch to make it look nice, but he thought better of it since I told him I had more riding to do Monday and he thought the runner would rip open, so he went with old school single closures. Its not like I really care about scars on that leg anymore, I think I'm far from my leg modeling days. He put in some muscle stitches underneath and about 8 or 9 stitches on the skin layer and I'm good as new! Well, maybe a little rough this morning. Maybe a lot rough. I know that all seems like a bummer day, but I really didn't mind it too much. I'm thankful to know some people to help me out, I got all my riding done, my bike is intact, and I don't need major surgery. What is a major incident for some people, isn't too bad for me anymore since I'm so accustom to major surgeries.
I'm now off to ride the road bike for a few hours in the rain, and of coarse I will have my eyes peeled for ground hogs or whatever else my be darting across the road. I don't want a ground hog day repeats!
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