Well, here I sit, the day following the final stage of the 2008 BC Bike Race, and I'm still trying to come to terms with all that transpired in the last week. The short version is to follow right now, with a daily breakdown coming in time...which is exactly what I'll be taking right now, time.
Time to heal, time to deal, time to appreciate, time to relax, and time to find that fire again. It's been a tough season so far.
Here is my best, in hindsight, explanation of what lead to the premature ending of my BC Bike Race experience.
-My broken finger lead to an inability to properly grasp my right hand grip
-This in turn lead to an intense blister right in the palm of my hand
-This forced me into an altered handling position to try and alleviate the pain
-This was one contributing factor to my fall from my bike into a pile of rocks
-The fall lead to a hematoma of my hip and a strained abdominal muscle.
This all happened on day two, with just 3km to go in the stage. We were just over 200km into the event, with an additional 350 to go.
(This pic has been taken one full week after the initial fall)I managed to make it to day five before officially calling it a race. The abdominal pains kept me up at night and would bring me to tears on numerous occasions. To cough or sneeze meant I had to completely compress the entire right side of my body, as it felt as though my lower right abdominal muscles would erupt from within me otherwise.
(This pic was actually taken just a few hundred meters after my aforementioned bike crash)I can certainly take away a ton of positive experiences from this event, but for now, I just need to clear my head of any and all racing/training thoughts, ambitions and goals. I just need a bit of time to mentally relax and to physically recover. I feel completely destroyed on so many levels right now.
Todd should be posting blog reports in the coming days as well.
Thanks so much to everyone who made this race possible for us, Bryan Tasaka - Mind Over Mountain Adventure Racing, Marc Campbell - Helly Hansen, and Dean Payne - BC Bike Race. You guys all rock, and the race was a phenomenal experience, even with the issues I faced and the fact that I did not finish the entire course...357 days and counting...
GR