122 Days (My Hardest Ride So Far, Followed by my First Crash)

Wow.  That was a long hiatus.  I got a text from James this evening with a question:
"Do you know what happened exactly one month ago?"  He asked.
"No?"  I answered.
"Last blog post" was his response.

Yikes.

I never intended to go this long without updating my friends and family, and yet life and other priorities have made me forget to regularly update my blog.  I went skiing for the first time, school started back up again, and I began a new project on Facebook where I will be posting a photo each day over the course of 2013.  I figure that with my graduation in May, Texas 4000 ride over the Summer, and getting married and having a honeymoon just over two weeks after I get back that it would be the ideal year to keep people updated.

Texas 4000 was a little sluggish getting me back into things after my cycling (and Christmas) break this winter.  We had a couple of weeks to relax before our commitments started back up again, but boy did they start with a bang!

Our first team ride was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my whole life.  It was only 35 or so miles, but the hills were so steep that I actually shamed myself by walking up three of them.  And then, last weekend, we had a 40-ish mile ride past McKinney Falls State Park, which would have been beautiful, except it was misty all morning.  We got wet, the roads got slick, and throughout the course of the morning at least eight people crashed in the same spot on the ride but at different times.  Goody, my first road rash.  I honestly felt fine after my fall for about seven of the last thirteen miles, but when I got home I let myself cry in the shower as I let go of the adrenaline that pumped me through the morning.  My leg is healing well, but I still wake up whenever I try to turn onto the left side of my body.  The first night after my crash I started to have a dream that I was cycling in the rain, and I felt myself lose control of the rear wheel and slide out. . . I jolted awake and willed myself to dream of bunnies and puppies after that.

I was hoping to go with some of my teammates on a ride tomorrow morning, but I think that I will let my leg heal a little more first.  I know that it is likely that I will fall and get injured over the summer and won't have a choice but to ride, but for now I am going to coddle myself and nurse my first real T4K injury.