Monday, April 21, 2014

Crassssshhhhhhh.

Today was my first real crash on my mountain bike! I've crashed before when I used to do some downhilling with Vince, but I always had full pads on and rarely actually felt anything. Since I am stuck on my couch at the moment with my leg unable to move itself, I'm going to tell you all about it over a million paragraphs, though it was like a three second crash.

Vince and I have planned a shiftaroo type of ride where I drive him to the top of Snowbowl with Roxi, drive back to the bottom and leave the truck for him to pick up and take Roxi home, then I ride from the bottom of Snowbowl to home. The first part went well and I parked the truck and started riding the AZ Trail. I didn't get any warmup in because the place I originally wanted to park that would have given me a warmup was not in an ideal spot for Vince because it would have made him late to work. So I started riding mostly at a decline until I get to the trail I was looking for, which started ascending right away. I had never ridden this part of the trail on Rocky Moto, but right away there were some technical spots. I wasn't able to clear some of them, especially since my legs weren't really ready to do the riding I was doing, so I ended up getting off my bike to walk a section. In my head I thought, 'Walking fucking sucks! I need to at least try riding this stuff. What's the worst that can happen, I fall? So what!' When I got back on my bike I just started crushing it. I was pedaling hard, clearing some stuff I wasn't sure I was going to clear, and then one mile later BOOM. I crash.

It was a pretty steep uphill with the trail leaning off to the right. As soon as I hit the big rock I was trying to clear, I felt myself leaning too far to the right, so I tried to unclip my shoes so that I could place my foot on the ground to balance myself. Unfortunately, my foot was stuck between my bike and a rock and I couldn't get it off! My knee and elbow quickly slammed into a pile of big rocks with my left leg getting caught up in the bike. I sat on the ground for a few seconds doing this:
(and no, you don't need to watch the whole video, it's just the first 15 seconds on repeat)

I stood up to try and shake it off but my right leg wouldn't work! Immediately upon impact under my right knee I felt something shoot up my quad to my hip and down my calf to my toes and knew I hit a nerve or something. I figured I'd walk for a minute to try and see how I felt and quickly realized I wasn't going to be able to finish my ride. I called Vince to make sure he hadn't already left with the truck yet, and luckily he hadn't.

I didn't want to make him late for work so I decided to hop back on my bike and just ride through the pain, and it felt better! I was able to get down the difficult parts of the trail with just a little pain in my leg. After a couple minutes I stopped for a second thinking I might just call Vince to tell him I'd finish my ride and that maybe my pain before was just because I was scared, but as soon as my foot touched the ground it hurt so bad. Last year Vince hurt his leg (he didn't work for many weeks!) and I think it was so bad because he kept riding after he hurt it, thinking it wasn't terrible. I wanted to avoid that, so I sadly headed back to the truck.

As soon as I got to the truck and off my bike, the pain quickly set in and spread. Instead of just being localized around where I hit it and the area in my quad and calf I originally felt the pain, I felt it spread to my groin, hips and butt, down to my toes and around my ankle, and all around my kneecap and the back of my knee. So painful! Vince drove us home and I kept trying to lift my leg to readjust it and it hurt too much to even move it.

So now I am at home hoping that rest will let it heal quickly. It's not like I have an open wound or a torn muscle, so I have no idea how to let it properly heal other than resting it. I'm looking forward to a lot of riding this year, so I'm wanting to let it fully heal before I get crazy again. And you can bet that the next time I ride that new trail, I'm wearing kneepads!
My right knee (left in the picture) is clearly swelling some in various places, and I'd only been home about 5 minutes! Also, knees are so gross, I hate them.

And to end this post, here are some recent pictures: 
And one from the other day when Vince and I rode:

7 comments:

  1. aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Man, I tell you....wrecking/falling as an adult is SO PAINFUL. I wrecked the shit out of bikes when I was a kid, and had like a one or two hour body fail at most. Then at about 18 that turned into a full day of downtime. I fell on the ice in Sweden and couldn't move for two days. What I'd give to bounce around like a kid again.

    Still I'm sure you'll feel better soon!!!! I don't know if it was like this for you but for me every single time I fall time slows to a crawl and I feel like I'm in an action movie. A very boring action movie.

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    1. Seriously! I'd fall as a kid and be like, Hmm, that hurt my knee, whatever! And now I'm like, my knee, and now my hip, and now my shoulders! My whole body hurts and then I feel like I'm ancient haha

      I hope I feel better soon! And yes, time went so slow, I knew what was happening and couldn't do anything to stop it! haha

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  2. I CAN'T STOP PEDALIN'. I CAN'T STOP PEDALIN'. I CAN'T STOP PEDALIN'.

    (YES, I REALIZE YOU WERE NOT ON A FIXED GEAR, BUT I AM 99.9% SURE YOUR TITLE IS A BEAT FEET REFERENCE.) :) [CAPS LOCK ALL DAY, BITCHEZZZZ]

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  3. PS. Glad you're not completely broken! :)

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  4. I want to get a bike SO BADLY but I know this is what would happen to me. I know it. I remember being little and we had mountain bikes for the first time. My dad was fixing someone on my brother's and told me to go down this hill to get to the trail. I was scared but my dad essentially yelled at me for being a chicken ass, so I went. And promptly hit a barrel that was half hidden. Then I flipped over my handle bars, was airborne for what seemed like forever, landed several feet down at the bottom onto a railroad track and had my bike land on me. Miraculously, nothing was broken and the worst injury was a swollen bruise that popped up immediately, the size of a football on my inside thigh. And it was red and black, it was scary looking. I had to walk all of the way home while my dad tells me NOT to tell mom he was present. LOL.

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  5. Ow ow owwwww. No bueno!! I have back problems as you've read in previous blog posts before, so any fall like this and I am out for weeks so I can only imagine how much pain you are in my friend! I hope you have been rotating heat and ice and are feeling better now.

    BTW - I FINALLY started a new blog. I am so excited. It's not much, but it's my new project and I hope you will follow me again!! Have a great weekend <3

    http://www.thedandelioneffect.blogspot.com

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  6. That looks so painful! I hope it's better now. Everything else is beautiful though!

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