Mad as a donkey munching on bumblebees

A few weeks ago my teammate Evie sent an email around complaining about being “stung” by the lame Georgia Cup promoters, hence the munching on bumblebees comment. I steal her line now, and I’m sure she won’t mind, because I feel exactly the same way today.

This weekend was mostly great – I traveled to Salisbury, NC for the state road race championships with my teammate Jen, where we met up on Saturday with 5 other of our team hotties. It was a good day, albeit a pretty negative race that ended in a field sprint, but it turned out okay because we were 2nd and 3rd in the sprint (Jen, then me), and took the masters State Championship home because the girl who won is from VA. Yay!

Then we spent Saturday night in Charlotte hosted by our beautiful teammate Christy, grilling dinner and sharing fun story after fun story.

Sunday was the Open Women race and more of the same from Saturday, only with a few different players. We still had 7 hotties, although the names changed a bit, and the race was still pretty negative. We were on the last lap, a few miles from the finish, and I had finally gotten my head in the game and was mentally preparing for the sprint, where I intended to decimate everyone (I can say this, since I didn’t get to mix it up so no one will ever know what I could’ve done).

We started on the one downhill of the course (seriously, just one downhill), and were approaching the steep part with everyone giving everyone plenty of space… or so one would think. I was on the right hand side, minding my own business, when out of the corner of my left eye I see a flash of red, hear a shout, kind of like “what the hell are you doing?” and then hear the tell tale sound of a wheel swiped out… briefly I think “it’s behind me, I’m fine” then still out of the corner of my eye I see the red flash flying toward me in the air and think “oh f*ck, she’s going to hit me!” And so at 30 mph some silly girl broadsides me and I’m thrown to the ground, landing on my shoulder and sliding, sliding, sliding… the first thing I remember hearing is “what the hell were you doing? And then you took my teammate out too!” and I think, “damn, two of us went down.” But they’re both up and off the ground and I’m laying there, stunned, flashing back to Iron Cross, and wondering if I broke anything. I stand up, look at my bike and wonder if I can roll in to the finish (no way, both wheels are trashed, not to mention my body).

My shoulder was hurting like a mofo. But, all I could do was scream at this girl as she got to ride her bike away “enjoy being healthy!” and perhaps a few choice words that I should be ashamed of but am not. I was pretty out of it and only remember hazy details of what happened after that, but I vaguely recall asking Evie if she was okay and she seemed it, though scraped up, and then my whole team was there and that was pretty sweet even if I couldn’t express it in my dazed condition. I didn’t want to take the ambulance because I’m a cheapie but when I couldn’t move my arm I thought “hmm, I guess I better…”

The Xrays came back with no broken bones (thank goodness!) but the only way to know if there is anything torn is an MRI, which I’ll need to do if I don’t feel significantly better in 3-4 days. Since I still can’t lift my arm more than a few inches away from my body I’m somewhat concerned… and am still mad as hell. I thought writing this might be cathartic but I still want to punch a certain someone in the face… if this had happened in a big NRC race, it would be par for the course and I would say “that’s bike racing!” and be grumpy and move on. But since this happened in a field of 20, and the top prize was like $60 or something lame like that, I am pretty pissed. Mmm… perhaps words can’t express just how angry I am. I had finally gotten myself on track to regain what little fitness I could for nationals, and now my chances to defend our national title are wrecked by some idiot racing for last place glory in the state champs. Boo. BOOO!

A big thank you to my beautiful teammates for hanging out with me in the emergency room, listening to me rant incoherently and helping me get dressed in order to leave. You guys are the best!

Up next: Well, Andy says I have to get back on the bike on Wednesday, even if it’s the trainer. The $65 I paid for the Cowbell Challenge on Saturday I’m pretty sure will be another casualty of this little adventure, but I’ll be out there anyway, supporting Andy & his cutie pie teammate Daniel as they tackle the 12 hour duo event. I can only hope the pain subsides enough to let me do something aerobic.