So I've finally decided to come back after a long hiatus. Wow, it's been more than 5 months! So many things have happened. I will do my usual blogging about the cycling rides and about other things in life.
Last Saturday we (yep, now it's 'we' not 'I' anymore) joined the PV ride. I have done this ride twice in the past. The first time, I was feeling great and thought, this isn't so fast, when the pace suddenly increased and I got dropped. Later I found out the pace that I loved was in fact a warm-up...The last time, I got slingshotted a couple miles after the acceleration. This time, I hang on, it was surprising. There was this older woman who was crazy, dashing from side to side trying to hang on. She turned to say let's go catch them with a huge snot hanging out and blowing in the wind. I spent a considerable amount of energy dodging said snot. I hang on for about 15 min and almost made it to Alpine. Pretty proud of myself - I think it's the rollers at home which makes me 'fast' on flats.
The following day, we rode with m's club. The club people are mostly boring except for an old guy. He is the only person and guy who has ever told me to pull him after we got dropped by the group. It was the ride which I met m and was my recovery ride after lots of climbing the previous day. Now 5 months later, I doubt he would ask me to pull since I will be in the front group. As we were riding with the club m and I decided to split off to lose some weight before climbing OLH. Then as we were making our way to OLH, a peloton passed us and we jumped on their wheels. They looked fast (from their leg muscles). There was this guy who was riding oddly by the side, upon close examination (shouldn't have done that), he was peeing while cycling...seriously?! It's not like this is the TDF. Coincidently, this group also went to climb OLH, m went to the front to race with them while I rode at my own pace. I felt like I was flying up the mountains. I passed everyone including a few people from m's club who started the climb before us. I finished at 26 min 24 sec, 50 secs off from my PR - not bad :) I think this is due to the fact that my weight is finally down to 58 kg. It's odd, but, I have proven the dangers of having carbs at night. The last couple of weeks, I decided to not have carbs at night unless there is a ride the next morning, my weight plummeted so quickly. Also, I realized that I need to do proper warm ups. I don't mean just a warm up at 70% max heart rate, but one where my heart rate has maxed out. This is because when my heart rate went over 180 (due to doing the PV ride), climbing the mountains was so much easier, and I could go at the same or faster speed at a lower heart rate. I suppose my body is just lazy. It's still half asleep when I do normal cycling, only when my heart rate goes over 180, does it decide to wake up and cooperate.
The ride was great and we decided to go home quickly, so we begin descending La Honda. I've done this many times before. Although there are some traffic here, the road is very winding so cyclists go at pretty much the same speed as cars. I often look back to see if there are cars coming. This time, there was a cyclist behind me descending at the same pace. Soon he yelled 'car back'. I yelled 'car back' to m who was in front. The car looked to be driving dangerously so I yelled 'car back' to m again. It looked like the car will run over him anytime. The next thing I knew, the car was right in front me with brake lights on. He was making a turn and cut into the right border. There was no place for me to go and I had to brake hard. The wheel slipped under me and I crashed hard onto the ground. When I came around, I was lying on the ground with shoes still attached to the pedals (new speedplays). The cyclist who was behind me stopped and helped to remove my feet from the pedals and dragged me to the side of the road. He asked if I have flexibility in my arm and how was my head. My arm felt fine, head hurt a bit. I took off my helmet and was astounded to find that the helmet had cracked through.
It was odd, the scary part of the crash was not during the crash itself, but was in assessing the damages. I looked at my arm, my waist, and saw blood, and thought, oh man...not again. The old scars haven't completely gone away and already new ones will come :( Surprisingly, there was no blood from my legs, I think it's due to the restriction from the pedals, although there must have been a lot of banging around cos my right knee is now bruised all over.
For some reason, I have always wanted to use the expression 'stuck between a rock and a hard place'. I suppose this is a good opportunity to use it. In here, the rock is the truck and the hard place is the ground. Considering everything, it would have been worse if I had crashed into the truck - that would have sent me flying. I have always dreamt of flying, but not in this way.
I'm sure the crash must have looked horrendous. I wish I could have seen it for myself. The cyclist who helped me was certain that I broke something, when I didn't, he concluded that young folks don't break anything. After sitting around, pondering about my bad luck and fantasizing about punching the driver, I thought I'd better stand up cos I didn't want m to see me laying on the ground. As soon as I did, m came and was very worried. I was quite embarrassed to always crash. M asked how I am and wanted to call an ambulance. It would be interesting to go on an ambulance ride, but not if I have to pay hundreds of dollars for it especially since I felt fine. Any pain or headache must have been masked by the anger.
We rode back to the car. I think I have been jinxed by some cycling merchandise that I got for free. In the last crash, I was wearing the free knee warmers. In this crash, I brought along the free arm warmers. Logically, I decided to throw away the arm warmers. M said maybe other cyclists would want them and perhaps those would be lucky for them. So we hang them on a tree like a christmas present and drove away. After getting cleaned up (this time I didn't have to use hydrogen peroxide phew!), we went to the ER to get me checked up. My head was feeling increasingly dizzy and headachy. The ER doc did some simple checks and concluded that everything looks fine, but that when I sleep that night, every 2 hours, I should have someone to wake me up...that was comforting to know.
My headache got worse over the next few days. And I wasn't able to go to work. My boss is really nice and said that my health is the priority, and to only go back when I am 100% better. I was super bored at home. Typically I get headaches from not going outside or from watching TV during the day or from general laziness. So I tried to go to work to see if the headache would get better - that didn't happen. As the week progressed, I was getting increasingly worried, so I saw another doctor. He also thought that everything is fine but I asked him to order a scan. And convinced him to get a MRI rather than a CT. The next day I went to take the MRI scan. It was a Friday afternoon, and the doctor will not get back to me with the result until the following week. But I got the images on a CD for myself. Looking at them, I was convinced that I see bleeding (darker regions than other areas) and swelling (unsymmetrical brain). So I called the hospital, jumped through the hoops - an operator and a nurse - reached an ER doc who looked at the images and said it's normal. Of course, I didn't really believe him because he was likely busy and only looked at it briefly. I never take chances when it comes to my health, so I went into the hospital the next day to see a doctor in person. Conclusion: MRI looks fine, the brain takes time to equilibrate after the big shock hence the headaches.
9 days later, I feel much better, almost back to normal. This experience has been a setback in terms of my health, training and work - all because of someone else's recklessness. But of course, I always try to see the good in things and what I can learn for the next time (yes, yes, so cliche). The take home message here is that contrary to popular belief, it is probably safer to take the whole lane when descending winding roads and only allow cars to overtake when it's safe. If there were any happy memories from this experience, it was having m taking care of me....having him with me on every hospital visit, seeing him cook for me while I rest, it just makes me visualize our future together with extra clarity, certainty and longingness :) LG, lifes good.
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