Monday, July 7, 2008

My worst injury of the year..

and to everyone's surprise, it didn’t come from mountain biking….
(but let's hope it stays my worst injury!)

This weekend was the Marysville festival stage race & XC, expected it to be a great weekend and it was. Kuhn, the Oesterlings, Visit PA and everyone who makes this happen always do such a great job. Weekend full of festivities, fellow riders, supporters and friends including a Friday night “time trial”, Saturday XC and capping off with a hill climb and short track on Sunday.

We had expected to stay in Marysville area all weekend but since we forgot the kennel wasn’t open to drop off our boys on Friday we sucked up the fact we’d be driving back and forth each day. It certainly added to a long weekend and my exhaustion today.

Friday night’s time trial was ‘just a little slick’ thanks to some rain, but I had a good ride. Enjoyed riding with the lights again, managed to slide out only once and receive only a slight scratch, and thankfully on my left leg. (One goal this weekend was to Not add additional bruising or scratching to my right leg). Then we headed home for a few decent hours of sleep before heading out again.

This is where my injury occurs… of all places... unbelievable.

Saturday morning we stopped at a rest area about 10 miles from Marysville. Coming out of the restroom I caught my toe on the door that had this nice metal plate at the bottom. Needless to say, the metal plate won the battle with my big toe taking a chunk to symbolize its victory and lifting my nail out of its bed.

The shock and complete disbelieve of what just occurred covered up any pain that might have been there. Hubby came out to the car to find me with my foot wrapped in a towel and my words of “you’re not going to believe this” followed by “Sorry, this is really gross”. (I won’t get too descriptive here and no pictures… you’d thank me) Hubby got to work in his wonderful hubby way and tended to the wound and we left the rest area with the toe officially wrapped in gauze. Good thing we had our little medical kit!

And to the pleasure of my right leg, it was my left foot so I kept my goal of not adding injury to my right appendage. (I’m all about balance in my injuries)

It's certainly nothing life threatening or life altering… just couldn’t believe it.

Then the internal mental debate begins… Can I race? Would I do more damage or would it just be pain? Today is the XC race and I really want to do this, don’t I? I can’t be a DNS because of a rest area door?!? So again I look to hubby, he re-examines the toe and confirms that all the damage is done. Not a lot more damage I could do, it’s just a question of pain. So kitting up I began and racing I would do. This is when I discovered just how much you use your toes during mountain biking. It hurt to push the pedal so every climb was painful and mostly pushed by my right leg. It hurt trying to balance myself during any log over or root, but mostly it hurt going over any bumps.. that landing part was really painful.

I took it easy and did my race, usually riding solo with me passing only a few and only a few (the enduro's) passing me. Hubby never lapped me! Yes, that felt good. Marysville is another really fun course and I enjoyed it, well.. most of it anyway. I hadn't let a wounded toe stop me and I was proud of myself for that. I had an out that I didn’t take.

Though when I saw hubby with 10 minutes left in my race I did yell out “Advil… and a beer!” Which he kindly meet me at the finish with, it was the best beer I ever remember tasting and before long the mix of the beer and Advil took away any pain.

Then it was some great time just hanging out with everyone before we made our way back to the boys again. Our brief visit for outside time, feeding time, sleep, feeding time, outside time and we’re off!

Sunday brought the two other stage events of the hill climb and short track.

Hill climb… Sorry Kim, I bailed on this one and I thought of you knowing how much you’d love to do it and knowing I wasn’t. The downhill return would have been more pain than the climb (and trust me, the climb would have been extreme pain without a toe injury) so I choose to bail.

20 minute short track… I could do that… it’s only 20 minutes. So I kitted up again and went out for my few laps, not sure how many laps I actually did but it was fun.

And the finish meant my cycling shoes could be officially removed for the weekend!! Then it was time to sit back and enjoy watching all the other short track classes with some really great races, hanging out, bs’ing and some more beer. Not to mention the really great food the Oesterling’s had put together. The chicken wraps on Saturday and Sunday were awesome! I always love hanging out at races and seeing everyone, that’s the best part to me and Marysville always brings more “hanging out” time.

So overall a great weekend, even with my wounded toe.
(And receiving the new name of “Nine Toes”… thanks Dan)

Results wise…
I managed a 2nd in my XC and 2nd in my overall stage race. (I won’t make the puppy pose, again)

Hubby finished 1st in his XC and 1st in his overall stage race plus wrapped up taking the 1st place for Sport this year. Sweet!

1 comment:

Kim said...

Yay, Blakely! Nice recap...felt like I was there.
I broke my toe the day before a cross race & I remember thinking the exact thing, oh, it's just a toe blah blah blah...until clipping in or out of my pedals...owwwww. You guys are having a great season :)