The road back to training

How do fellow blog readers. Well with just over a week since my wreck, I'm slowly trying to get back into things. It will be at least another week before I can ride again. Apparently there was more damage than first thought on the bike. Talking with the bike shop on Thursday, the front end is being rebuilt. The yolk and the stem extension were both shattered and need replacement. The parts have been ordered and hopefully will be in sometime this week. Once they have the parts installed, then they will have a closer look at the drive train.

As for me, well Kermit the Frog said it best with "why are there so many songs about rainbows". It's because fools like me try and kill themselves and turn every colour afterwards.

My knee is the worst looking with the deep cut about 50% healed. The rest of the cuts and scratches are a beautiful yellowy-green and very itchy. (Don't worry mom, I'm keeping the scab picking to a minimum.) The surprise injury has been by lower left ribs. It hurts to do more than a fast walk. I went to the doctor this week, but because there is no sharp pain when I breath in, I'm supposedly okay.

This afternoon I did manage to muster up the courage to head out for a short run as I've been going stir-crazy not training for a week! After a 20 minute run, I have come to the realization, I still have a long way to go until I'm back to form. Ribs still hurt and the knee had a few twinges during the run, but I'm stupid enough to carry on. Hopefully I can make it out to another run this week and possibly a swim on Thursday if I can find some 'second skin spray'.

That's about it here in the land of Oz, just enjoying the cold late fall days. (we actually had to put the heater on this morning as it made it down to a chilly 9 degrees last night....burrr!!!)

Cheers
The optimistic purple man

The week that wasn't....meant to be?

Well I've seemed to miss posting something last week, but I'll use the excuse of mothers day. This past week was my first full week of work, so I'm trying to balance out the training and work schedule without missing out on good family time too. A good example is morning workouts. In order to make it to training in the morning, I have to take the 4:34am train and the train is about a 15-20 minute brisk walk away. Oh well, my choice to do these crazy things, but I get at least a week to figure out how to manage all these things as I recuperate from a bike wreck.

List of injuries include:

• both hands are cut up and bruised
• right tricep is almost completely purple and with some good minor abrasions
• my left shin looks like hell
• left knee I took a chunk of skin out about 5mm by 40mm
  
• and the piece-de-resistance is by butt. My bike shorts were tattered and I have more scrapes than you can shake a stick at and is currently about 65% purple.
  

The how, is we were out with the squad for our long bike ride of the week and it involved going up a mountain (not by Calgary standards anyways). Went up and I climbed beautifully and was with the front group. We turned around at the top and headed back down. We were about 5km from the finish when I went into a corner and just as I entered my front tire blew. It was about a 85 degree corner and I fought the bike to keep from going over the guard rail (that would have really hurt the bike). Made it just past the guard rail and tumbled down the hill. My bike stopped about 2 meters from the road in some shrubs, sunnies about 2 meters past that and me, well I rolled down the hill a good 30 meters. Don't as me how, but there were many rocks and trees and I managed to miss direct contact with all of them, very very scary if I think of the odds. The worst of the bike seems to be a small chip on the front rim and the tire had a gash about 75mm long.

It's a good thing it blew on the corner (if one can say that) because I was traveling at about 30/35 km/hr when it happened. Compare that to the 75-80 km/hr we were doing going down the straight portions. Not that I would want to choose a blow out, but if I had to, I'd pick the first one.

The squad stopped to help me and the best was Paul, a all around good bloke, who made sure I was okay. After telling him a couple of times I was okay, he asks "where's the bike? Is the #$%&$# bike okay!!" Made everyone have a good laugh. We called some members of the squad who were at the end meeting point and they brought up a car and took me and the bike down.

After getting home and picking the gravel out of my hands and butt, I'm doing good except to sit down which is a challenge without bending my knee and without plunking my butt down too hard.. :-)

Looking forward to getting out again in about a week or so, just depends on how quickly I heal up.

Until next time....

Cheers

The purple man

Fall time training

Last week was a good week for me. With the month of April now in the history books, I looked back at what I was able to achieve.

-First Triathlon in Australia
-Swam more than I have in a month

To get an idea of how much swimming I did, in the Month of April, I swam almost 25% of the total I completed in 2007! It showed during my Triathlon where I was able to be under 2:00 minutes/100m in a race.

I did manage to make it out with the squad a fair bit, actually making it out 20 times with them. Now with work on the horizon for me, I hope I am able to make it out as much this month. This month I started out with a nice long run yesterday and a very enjoyable 80km bike ride this morning. The group was split into two, with ours being 10 riders. We went out from the CBD (Cental Business District, fancy way of saying downtown) out to Mount Cotton and back. Riding in twos we all took our turn at the front of the group which was great. Lots of little rollers with a couple of bigger climbs to tackle. I took a couple more turns up front with two other guys who were the stronger ones in the group. The ride was the longest on my new bike and I must say it is very comfortable (it better be for the price).

Monday is a holiday here so an evening swim is planned followed by a 3km running time trial Tuesday morning and a swim in the evening. Wednesday morning is an 1.5 hour ride, Thursday is hill workout in the morning followed by an evening swim. Friday will be a day off for me and with any luck I might get that entry to Byron Bay Olympic race Saturday. Sunday will be spent pampering Colleen as she enjoys mother's day.

Hope everyone is doing well and I hope all my friends doing the Vancouver Marathon have a great race, with positive vibes coming your way from the south pacific.

Take care mates!
Richard