Lingering Injuries

As most athletes know, in the heat of competition and injury and it's pain is suppressed through adrenaline. If you ask almost any athlete if this has ever happened to them, you'll hear stories of bad injuries that they didn't notice till after the race. Depending the severity it could be from the second they cross the line to hours later.

In the case of my injury at the Manatoc race it didn't show up for hours later. In my report of The Mantoc Experience I mentioned a crash early in the race. What I didn't realize was that during the crash the brunt of force had been taking by my arm which then connected with my ribs. Me being the skinny person I am and having bony elbows i ended up hurting my ribs. It didn't hurt till later that day but became much worse the next morning. So for the past week and a half I have been in a fair amount of pain and every morning I must roll on my side to get up because it hurt to much to sit up.

I'm not one to stop riding because of a little soreness or a little blood shed so I did the a couple rides last week and handled my own. Truthfully, as long as I didn't hurt it again I would have been fine. So today I went out the the CAMBA group ride to lead the group. Last week even with the injury I lead the "A" group and held an average Mph of 9.9. Today's I was feeling the pain again, and a little worse and I was being careful as my steering was a little slower and I could turn my body and I was climbing seated to minimize the pain. All was going well until I hit the river trail and picked up a little to much speed on a downhill, couldn't make a slight jog to the right in time and barrelled into a tree with the full force on my injured left side. Made it through annex an about a quarter mile through Reagan before the pain was to much and I broke off the group and road the road back to the car. Under 5 miles done of the 10-12 that we normally ride on the group ride.

I came home and took a shower and iced my side and downed the Advil and as of right now I'm feeling fine. Sara was sweet enough to bring me Raspberry sorbet and blackberries which made it so much better.

So the next week I'll be focused on recovering and not reaggrivating the injury so I'll be riding the road bike alot and hopefully next week I'll be able to hit the trails on a full suspension bike. I'll be missing the Vultures Knob race this week end along with the Bike Authority Cyclocross race. And hopefully by next Sunday I'll be back up enough to race the Medina Time Trial.

On another note CAMBA race team member Nancy is also recuperating from a back injury after the manatoc race. She crashed into a tree, injuring herself and still came across the line first. Reports are that she is able to go to work again and is able to walk. Hopefully, she'll be back on the road bike again soon. Best wishes to her and wishing her a speedy recovery.