Blunt Trauma

The dull ache across my upper back kept me up most of the night. I just couldn't get comfortable. I caught most of the News Hour with Jim Lehrer when PBS-44 decided to come in half way decent for a change (the joys of rabbit ears and no cable. TV just ain't worth it). Why the pain? I would never have predicted this one...



As you can see, KL and I went out mountain biking on Friday. Backing up to Thursday, the forecast deluge of rain was nice enough to mostly hold off until after the Tiger Turkey Chase 5 miler. This year's event attracted 370 runners, which is pretty good. The course around town measures more like 4.86 miles than 5, so I cannot count my 31:21 finish time as a PR, but this, and running in only 17 seconds behind KL reassured me that all hope and fitness has not yet been lost. Soon after the race, the skies opened and the rest of the day rain poured down. No, we did not eat turkey, no special feast, nothing like that. Afternoon gluttony just isn't our style.

Friday dawned clear and nice, but flooding in the woods was a certainty. Rather than waste time traveling to Blue Hills, we stuck to the local trails so that we could bail to the roads if the flooding proved too severe. The town forest was impassable, with the trail completely under water. Taking the road down to Borderland, the access road in was amazingly dry. We found things were generally not muddy, but huge puddles of standing water had accumulated here and there. At one spot over on the backside of the bog, runoff had completely swamped the main road:



Navigating around the temporary pond, we made our way up Mountain Road (surprisingly dry) and up into the Morse Loop at the north end of the park. We found some new single track the NEMBA crew had created and then KL got a lesson in riding through huge puddles as we came upon more flooding. Still no mud though. The day was nice and warm, so we stopped at a flat spot in the trail for a quick primer on log hopping. KL hasn't done much mountain biking, despite her storied career as a road racer. I'm not exactly John Tomac either, but I was the only instructor available. So we have this small log (huh-huh) laying across the trail, and I'm trying to show her ways to ride over it. This reveals that KL does not know how to do a wheelie. Well, apparently neither do I... Normally, I never get the front wheel anywhere near the balance point, instead merely lofting it just enough to get up onto an obstacle. Well, concentrating on form, I lectured her to select the correct gear, shift your weight back... gentle tug on the bars as you drive the bike forward... right fucking over, hard, never got unclipped at all, full force slam tailbone, shoulders, back of the head. Ouch. Fucking ouch. I lay there convulsing, wind 90% knocked out of me, as my pupil looked on in horror. Man that fucking hurt. Seeing stars, down on all fours, trying to suck some air into my temporarily squashed diaphragm.

I had my camera, water bottle, and inflator in my back pockets too. Luckily no damage. The helmet wasn't cracked either (I need a new one anyway though). My upper back, right between the shoulder blades, took the brunt of the impact. Luckily, the ground wasn't frozen, and there were only a few rocks to land on. Could have been worse. That concluded today's lesson.

We rode back home. I felt like shit the rest of the day. This morning my head is still a bit foggy and my back hurts like hell, but it's just an ache and no specific area of pain indicating anything broken. Looks like a steady diet of ibuprophen for another day or two. The weather looks awesome, so maybe we'll get out a bit today, but tommorow is the bicycle swap meet and I've got to turn some excess junk into cash. That's the scoop. Hope you all had a great holiday, and kept the jelly side up. Thanks for reading.