Long Ride Interrupted by Crash

My goal was to go 50-60 miles today.  Walter agreed to do some of it with me on a group ride starting at 9 AM across town.  Seemed silly to drive over there when I was trying to get miles in so I left the house at 8 AM and rode.  It is also nice to get kind of warmed up at my own pace.  At that time of the morning, there wasn't a lot of traffic though I ran into a 5K preparing to start downtown and had a lady pull out of a parking space in front of me, but I saw her so we were good.  I made decent time and got to the school parking lot with a few minutes to spare.

The "group" was only me, Walter and Bruce.  I think we talked Bruce into going a little longer though Walter didn't seem to know exactly how long our route together was going to be.  It doesn't matter because with the wicked hills, ten miles felt like 20.  Ouch!  I was sucking wind, but I guess it all "builds character" and is good training for the climbing after the mid-point of the Tour de Cure.  I tried to map it though it was hard to follow exactly where we went.  It was a gorgeous day with a lot of sunshine though the wind picked up as we rode and was starting to suck a little towards the end.

According to Walter's bike computer, we went about 28 miles together (Centertown, St. Martins, west end of Jefferson City - MapMyRide seemed to indicate he was slightly short).  I rode about 11 miles out to meet them so I was looking at finishing about 50 total when I got back to my house and had thought about going on out to Taos to pick up another 10-15.  But it was no to be.

On the way back across town (alone having dropped Walter and Bruce at the grade school), I was cussing the railroad tracks that zig zag back and forth across Industrial Drive.  I turned onto McCarty Street and was glad that I only had to go over one more set to cross when it happened.  The tracks run more parallel to the travel lane in this location and I was just thinking about how much that sucks when all of a sudden I felt my wheel catch and I was thrown to the ground. 

Thankfully, not into traffic.  Thankfully, I had worn my thermal tights because it was chilly at the outset this morning.  Thankfully, I had on my full fingered gloves (same reason).  Thankfully, my phone still had plenty of charge.  As I laid in the gutter, I was mildly surprised no one stopped.  It felt like a pretty horrific crash.  But I got myself up, pulled my bike onto the sidewalk and tried to decide what to do.  I freaked a little as a couple drops of blood hit the sidewalk and decided it wasn't time to be a hero and I called for a pussy pickup.  Thankfully, I was only about 3-4 miles from where my husband was working a Knights of Columbus bbq so he hopped in the truck and came to get me.

Damage tally: A pretty good raspberry on my hip/abdomen and matching one on my shin (would have been much worse without the tights); pretty sore shoulder (dirt on new jersey proved I had hit this pretty good - plus gravel and a piece of the rubber pad from the railroad crossing fell out of my jersey pocket when I undressed); by far the worst was my right elbow.  I burned off some skin, got a deep bloody cut and whacked it pretty hard.  It hurts like a son-of-a-bitch!  I nearly shrieked when I was in the shower trying to clean it out.  I did shriek when I put peroxide on it to try to disinfect the area.  My son bandaged it up (thank you Boy Scout first aid) because it continued to drip blood.

OUCH!

So in the end, I got 46.4 miles in.  Needless to say, I took it pretty easy this afternoon and tried to rest.  I read, watched a movie and laid around.  Hopefully, tomorrow won't bring new aches and pains.  If I don't feel completely like crap, I might try to go out for a short ride.  Gotta get back up on that horse, right?

YTD:
Swimming = 10,000 yds = 5.7 mi
Biking = 637.5 miles
Running = 91.0 miles