Well, that sucked.
Everything was going so well. I ate right when I planned to, I had most of my water bottle down. I was not going to bonk. I knew I was pushing hard and I was doing about 13.4 mph average. It would probably drop down later when I would settle in to a more long-term pace, but I was feeling good. I was passing people and just having a blast.
Too much fun, maybe.
It was about eight miles in, we were all in a line going though one of the few single track sections and I was just chatting up the people in front of me and the ones behind me. I must have misjudged a turn and my front wheel hit the loose dirt on the edge and lost traction.
I must have closed my eyes because I remember black and then pain.
I bounced up off the ground, someone moved my bike off the course and I had to sit back down. I just hurt all over. Nothing seemed to be broken, I could walk, but I just hurt from the hit of the ground. Eventually the pain went ways beside my knee and my shoulder. I hobbled over to my bike and started to assess that situation. My handlebars were tweaked in relation to my wheel. My front tire was flat. My rim was out of true. I can fix the first two.
As I started to work on my bike, I realized that I can’t use my left arm to lift any up. I could push things, and pull things, but when I needed to lift my tire over my bike, it hurt. I eventually got everything back together and roll ready, but I wasn’t sure about me. I got on and it kinda hurt, but seemed to be fine when I put weight on my handlebars. I could go on.
Right after where I fell, there was this steep little down hill section that was all rutted out and I barely made it though there alive. It seemed to hurt when I took the weight off my bar to turn or if I needed to move it fast. I started walking.
I ended up walking a mile before I was rescued and taken to the EMTs. They asked me to move things around and they pronounced nothing was broken. Then they gave me ice and sat me down.
Eventually I made I back to my car, where I packed up camp with one hand, saw Tristan Uhl win, then I managed to drive my manual transmission car home one handedly.
So my grand plans of actually finishing this year were cut tragically short halfway through the first lap.
And I don’t want to think about what this is going to do to my race season.