Sunday, August 2, 2009

Pre-nats

The week before nationals was, without a doubt, the most complete recovery week I have ever had. I rode the hour or two per day as was instructed but besides that, my daily activities included Tour watching, general web surfing, and watching the complete first season of Heroes. In addition, every night after dinner (and sometimes before dinner as well) we would sit down for family movie time and watch one of our many borrowed dvd's that we scored at the Kutztown public library (great alternative to the movie store). The point is that besides the occasional trip to the kitchen, I was basically laying down for a week straight....my legs were gonna be so fresh for nationals.


Highlights of the week leading up to our trip to Oregon include the day that Thomas and Oscar went out on a gathering mission and came home with at least 5 or 6 lbs of wild rasberries. We'd seen them lining the backroads for a week prior but hadn't discovered their identity until Thomas stopped and asked some guy that seemed to be picking the berries. Anyway, all Thomas's wildest dreams came true (rasberries are his favorite food) and we ate rasberries with every meal for 3 days straight.

Also, while out training on Thursday, Thomas and I got caught in a terrential downpoar. The rain was coming down hard, and Oscar even called wondering if he should come pick us up somewhere but we brushed off the offer thinking we were gonna be totally badass and pound it out through the rain storm. Good call......not! Fifteen minutes later I found myself on the ground sliding across a metal open grate bridge and then onto the concrete. Whathahappent was, as we were riding in a straight line across this bridge, even going slow I might add, I either jerked my biked a little or maybe just peddled. Either way, the metal was sooooooo slick and something I did made my bike start sliding sideways, and before I knew it I was sliding hands and head first across the ground.

Being wet, the concrete portion of the ground was awful kind to me and didn't give me any of the ordinary road rash. The metal grate bridge on the other hand, did what all graters do best and sliced into my palm. The area of infliction was the squishy, meaty part right under my thumb, and split open, I got a first hand view of what a thumb muscle looks like.....no different than a piece of raw chicken breast (except bloodier). Looking down to see my own skin parted and a little sliver of chicken sticking out between the skin flaps really messed with my head. Almost immediately I got nauseous and sorta dizzy. As I stumbled over to a stone wall to sit down, Thomas called Oscar back to take him up on his offer. I was doing all I could to keep from throwing up for the next half hour as I sat in the rain. I calmed down soon enough however, and by the time we were on the way to the hospital I had actually discovered that by flexing my thumb I could suck that little extruding piece of meat back up into my skin and then release to make it hang back out again. Thomas thought that was pretty cool but Oscar wouldn't look and I think I almost made him pass out while driving just by telling him about it.

No one was in the emergency room so it was a quick n' easy visit (except for the 2 or 3 shots the lady put right into my hand, that hurt!!!!!) and I only got 4 stitches. After the nurse lady was done I admired her work at closing it up so well and she even said, "Yeah, I just had to shove that little piece of meat back up in there." I couldn't have said it better myself.

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