Since January I have been training and dieting like a mad man. My world has revolved around power to weight ratio and every gram of food has been counted. As I lost the weight, I also was slowly losing my sanity. I was always hungry and therefore always irritable. I even gave up my beloved beer... that's right, I live in a state with the best beers you can find and I was too scared of the extra calories to indulge. This made me pretty unbearable to be around. Something had to break for me to regain my sanity, and that my friends came in the form of the back window of Nissan Xterra. Let me explain. On Thursday, May 29, I was in the midst of a tempo training session best done on the road. The route I take for this training session is on roads with the least amount of traffic... except for one intersection that connects the route. I was heading north on this intersection which is a two lane road with traffic merging from highway 58. It was around 5:40pm so it was rush hour, and there was a car merging into my lane. To make sure that I was not in the blind spot of the car merging, I sped up and looked at the driver until he made eye connect so I knew he saw me. As soon as we made eye connect I looked forward... traffic had come to a complete halt. I didn't even have time to feather my brakes. I ran into the back of a the massive yellow SUV going about 20 mph and flew through the rear window. I had done a half twist and was laying in the trunk staring at the ceiling with my right leg hanging out what was the window. The glass was everywhere, and so was my blood. The majority of the impact was take(n) by my left arm. An ambulance came and gave me a pricey ride to the hospital. I ended up getting about 63 stitches on my left arm, and about 5 on a deep cut on my left leg. Luckily nothing was broken. There I was, lying on a bed in the hospital and all I could think about was how I was not able to complete my training session. I could have been killed and I was worried about not completing a training session. That's when I knew I'd lost my mind. My club in the Midwest, FORC, has a saying, "Have Fun, Drink Beer". Somewhere in midst of all the training, dieting , and obsession of competing I lost focus of the fact that this is suppose to be fun. Instead of training I spent the weekend drinking some beer and having fun. On Monday I decided to do the six hour ride I had planned on doing on Saturday in order to train for a one hundred mile charity race I have in a few weeks. It ended up taking six and a half hours instead. Although ever bump mind me grit my teeth, I had a blast. For now on I'm going to drink a little more beer and make sure I'm having fun even in the midst of training. HFDB!
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| Bloody, but still smiling! |
The long ride only four days after accident... just follow the blood trail to trace the route!
