If I had the weekend to do over again, I would have stayed in bed on Sunday. Perhaps, I would have gone for a run in the early AM. Instead, I set out to do another long ride. I wanted to do back to back rides to get the experience before the MS150, which is 100 miles on Saturday and 80 miles on Sunday. Earlier tonight as I sat and cried in frustration and pain, I had lost track of the benefits that came from getting out of bed on Sunday.
First of all, if I had not gotten out of bed on Sunday, I would not have discovered that my shoes did not fit right the second day. My feet were sore and swollen, and the shoes were simply too small. They were killing my feet from the moment that I put them on.
Second, if I had not gotten out of bed on Sunday, it would have been at a later moment in time that my left shoe failed to unclip from my bike, and who knows where I might have been at the time, and what sort of disaster might have occurred.
They let riders take off early for Sunday’s ride, which was great. I hate being corralled all together at the start. I flew through the first 17 miles at a pace of more than 17 miles per hour. I got to the first rest stop and my feet were killing me, but I figured I could at least finish the 55 mile ride. Then at the second rest stop, I had a hard time unclipping from my pedal, and I fell down. It hurt, but I wheeled my bike back to the rest stop. My plan was to catch the SAG wagon back to my car. I had done 30+ miles already, and I felt like it was enough for the day. I really needed a different pair of shoes.
I got back to the rest stop, and someone gave me a bag of ice. Icing down my feet felt awesome. I was ready to go again. I put my shoes back on, they hurt, but I only had about 20 miles to go. I took off. I zipped by people, and I noticed that the riders had really thinned out. It was to the point that I wondered if I had gone off the course.
I was by myself as I came up to an intersection, I was happy to see an officer manning it because it indicated that I was in fact on course. Then disaster struck. Two cars approached the intersection at the same time as me. The officer waved for me to keep going, I sped up, and then he waved the car on too. I realized the situation, but the driver of the car did not. I tried to stop, and I could have stopped in time if I had more experience with my “clippy” pedals, but I got distracted by the fact that I could not get my shoe released from my left pedal. I slowed enough to keep the car from hitting me, but not enough to keep me from hitting the car.
The force of the impact went to my left hip, and then the inside of my right knee smacked the pavement. A couple of bike riders came up the intersection and kept right on going. The officer was yelling at the driver, and no one came to my aid. The second car, drove around us as if nothing happened. This further infuriated the police officer.
I scraped my already scraped left knee because my left foot was still attached to my pedal. I could not get it undone, I actually wound up taking off my shoe. I was in pain, and I was embarrased. The driver pulled his car to the side of the road, and I sat in his passenger seat and enjoyed his air conditioning while we assessed the damage. I did not think until the next day to look to see if there was any damage to his car.
Blue, my bike, seemed fine. He probably wishes someone other than me had adopted him from the bike shop, but he can’t talk yet, so we can’t be sure.
The driver told me his full name, but all I caught was Matthew. I wondered if he went by Matt, but I didn’t ask. Matt/Matthew insisted that we exchange phone numbers just in case. This goes against my giving a stranger my phone number policy, but I went ahead and did it. He wanted to give me a ride back to my car, but there was no place in my car for Blue. Instead, we called the SAG wagon, and I got picked up leaving my pride on the side of the road.
In all I rode 98 miles in the weekend. I loved the hills and the pace of my first ride, I got much needed experience from my second ride. I went to work Monday feeling defeated instead of feeling good about what I had accomplished. On Tuesday, I would find out that my clip was lose from my shoe, and it was bad equipment not rider error that was keeping my from losing my foot from the pedals. It was also on Tuesday that two of my co-workers informed me that they did not want me riding with them anymore because I seemed accident prone. This made me feel terrible. Apparently, they have never fallen themselves. Perhaps, there is a finite number of falls that people take a year on bikes and I have taken more than my fair share, thus sparing them.
Matt/Matthew is a good sole. Imagine his perspective on this. He was simply driving along when a bike collided with him. Instead of helping me, the officer was intent on placing blame on Matt/Matthew. The only person that offered me help at all was Matt/Matthew. Bikers and cars just kept on. He called three times. I finally picked up the phone the third time he called, which was on Tuesday. I thought he was calling to tell me I damaged is perfectly polished BMW, instead he was just making sure that I was really okay. We both agreed that the accident looked and sounded way worse than it actually was. I told him that I was more than fine and planning on riding again on Sunday. He said he would stay off the road to avoid getting hit again. We laughed together at the situation.
On Wednesday, my coworkers kicked off their morning making fun of my crash. They thought they were clever in nicknaming me “Amber Alert”. I left work on Wednesday feeling as if all of my riding accomplishments over the past three months were crapped on by an accident due to circumstances beyond my control. I became overly focused on their ridicule. Blogging is a great thing. Putting all the events down together makes me glad that they things happened as they did. I might be riding alone on Sunday, but I will be riding!