This weekend I went on a ride with several members of my team...another big climbing day at 87 miles with about 5500 - 6000 feet of climbing, most of which came on a single 17ish mile 3300 foot climb. I'm soooo sick of 15+ mile climbs as they never seem to end...and I'm far from a climber :)
At the top of the climb we all re-grouped since it was an out and back then headed back down the hill. Not more than a minute into the descent I came up on the tightest corner at around 40 mph and overshot the corner. I was able to ride the dirt for 30-40 feet before either going too far into the ditch or hitting a rock...not sure which, but I went down...apparently doing a cartwheel in the process.
This was my first crash in several years...and in some ways, it's good to get it out of the way.
As I laid in the ditch I did a once over of my body and other than a few scratches and my side hurting a fair amount I was fine. No broken bones...nothing separated...just a nice hematoma on the right side of my abdomen that has swelled a bit and a bit of a cut in the same place. I'm guessing I landed on a rock.
Once I stood up, I did a once over of my bike and nothing was broken, but the rear derailleur hanger was bent in a bit so my granny gear was inaccessible for the time being...though I later did stop and give it a good pull to allow me to use it again.
For the next 30-45 minutes I had zero power. I was getting throttled on any small climb and was just trying to hang on in pace lines. It's amazing how much even a small crash can take out of you.
As we continued I started to feel a bit better, but never got back to the original feeling I had before the crash...but felt good enough to stop getting dropped to bad on the climbs.
All in all for the day we rode a little over 87 miles in 4 hours and 41 minutes with 5500-6000 feet of climbing.
With my abdomen still swollen today I decided to not race PIR this week...which turned out to be a good idea since there was a pile up in the field tonight that one of my teammates got caught up in, but wasn't hurt other then a small amount of road rash...but his brand new "Flashpoint 60's" need to be re-trued due to the crash...big time bummer on that one.
Hopefully my crashing is done for the next several years and considering I only had minor injuries I should be good to go by next week for the Cascade Classic. In some ways this is probably good because it's making me take it a bit easier on the bike. After the ride this Saturday my CTL jumped to over 123 and my legs were feeling a bit "toasty"...so I took both Sunday and Monday off...went out for a ride today (a little over 2 hours) and it's still in the mid 117 range. I'm going to try and keep my intensity up over the next two weeks, but start reducing some of the longer rides to taper off...which will hopefully bring that down into the 110 range or so which should give me fresh legs for the Cascade Classic.
Now if I can just get this swelling to go down :P
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