As I woke up yesterday, and heard the rain slapping against my window panes, I barely stifled a laugh. Memories of watching the Pro crit during a nasty storm in Jacksonville a few weeks ago ran through my brain, and I contemplated calling some friends who reside near the race course to invite them out, and jokingly suggest that I might need a ride to the Emergency Room. Perhaps I'm clairvoyant, or perhaps I'm a master of self-fulfilling prophecies. Either way, my most recent misadventure is recounted below.
Picture yesterday in the Triangle. Temperatures in the high 50s. It was raining all night, and throughout the day. We were racing on a 6 turn, 7/10 mile course going through downtown Raleigh. The course was fairly flat, with painted cross walks, some manhole covers and road makers. There was a small CAT-4 field (lots of guys bagged it because of the rain) of around 20 riders. There were solid showings from NC State and Duke Sports Med teams.
After a cold 'warm up' we riders of questionable sanity lined up at the start, and exchanged a few jokes and quizzical looks mostly amounting to "why are we doing this again"? The race started fairly fast, and as is my proclivity I lead the first couple laps as a "warm up check" to try to drop anyone who hadn't warmed up properly. I pulled off, and settled into a draft for the next few laps, but somehow managed to miss a two man break that would end up sticking. Ah well...
For the rest of the race, I stayed in the front group of riders with the intent of taking the pack sprint. The field thinned slightly, but most of the riders stayed in fairly close proximity to us. As we rounded the last lap I was in a three man group with a rider from NCState and Duke Sports Med (putting us in 3rd, 4th and 5th). On the second to last turn, at around 30mph the NCState guy lost traction on his rear wheel and slid through the intersection, the Duke rider followed, and I, in that sixteenth of a second where I might have been able to cut the turn a hair tighter glanced towards the downed riders, and before I knew it everything went gray and I was on my back, having flown over the other riders, and the curb. I tried to sit up, but felt a little dizzy, and decided that perhaps laying down would be my best course of action. The race officials and the EMTs soon arrived, and I was on my way to the Emergency Room. Thankfully, I was the worst off of the downed riders, with the other guys only suffering road rash. The race staff and EMTs were very helpful with getting my bike locked up in my truck and securing my valuables as I laid immobile in the Ambulance.
After I arrived in the ER, I spent several hours laying around and enjoying the nursing staff's commentary on my heart rate. It was along the lines of "if you weren't Lance Armstrong, we'd be worried about a resting rate of 44..." Small conciliation, but a little ego boost
After an hour or so, I was able to link up with a friend of mine and his wife who were a great help, and later allowed me to stay at their house, as the morphine the ER nurse gave me precluded a drive back down to Fayetteville. After a full examination including a CAT scan and a few stitches, I was released.
My discharge from the ER posed another dilemma, as all I had for clothing was wet bibs and a jersey. All the hospital had was a set of used long johns...so, for the capstone visual of this little story. Picture me, walking through the packed hospital lobby, with a glorious shiner, a face full of blood, scrapes and stitches...in long johns, and 5 size too small hospital footies. As the waiting people stared at me I formed what I believe to be a pretty accurate description of their picture of me: "Someone must have kicked his ass, and stripped him...dang..."
All told, the damage done is:
Me: 5 stitches, minor road rash. No big deal, the worst part is constantly having to explain that nobody beat me up
Bike: Ruined frame on my Litespeed Vela. Bent Ksyrium SSC SL front wheel. Big ouch.
Thats racing I suppose...hopefully I'll be back racing this weekend or next.