PRs and Stitches

What a crazy weekend it has been. I'm sure a lot of you saw what happened both for the good and bad on Twitter, but for those of you who didn't, let me explain. Warning: This may be one of the lengthier posts I've written and there are graphic pictures below.

Friday
I raced the Fremont 5k on Friday night. We got so lucky - after a day of gray skies and rain, at 5pm the skies cleared and we had warm sunshine for the 7pm start time. Like I said in my post about this race last year, 7pm is a strange time to race. I sat all day at work, made a bad decision and ate Thai food for lunch, and over thought the race all day long. So by the time 7pm came along, I was feeling not 100%, but okay considering.

With a time of 25:15 last year, I knew I could pull off a big improvement with all the track workouts I've been doing and my coach was betting that I could do a 23:49. The race started and I went out...fast. I saw 6:xx on my Garmin and tried to slow myself down. A hill forced me to slow and the 1st mile clocked in at 7:35. I thought, "Ok, just hold this pace, that first mile was easy." I fell into a comfortable push at 7:40-7:45 pace for the next mile and then I entered the suffer fest.

I knew if I just held onto that 7:45 pace, I could get under 24 minutes. But I had a 1.1 miles to go. My lungs were burning and I felt like I could puke (thanks Thai food). I kept pushing and at about .5 miles to go I just wanted to keep a sub 8 pace. I pushed and pushed and felt like I was moving as slow as molasses. I could see the finish line and it wasn't getting any closer, or so it felt.

I hope I beat that little kid...

The last .2 mile Paige, Jen and her husband were cheering me on which gave me the final push to finish in 24:04. That is a :46 PR and a 1:11 improvement over my time at this race last year. I am pleased but geeze louise... 5ks are freaking tough! They are no joke.

Before the race I got to meet Jen Bigham! She runs for Oiselle and is a speedster. She picked up the W for the women's race in 17:15! It's always really nice to connect in real life with someone you've been chatting with on Twitter forever.

Jen, her daughter Currie and me

Saturday (warning, graphic pictures below)
I had plans to ride Flying Wheels on Saturday, which is an organized ride by Cascade Bike Club. Team Sweat (Rebecca, Thanh and myself) set out for 65 miles in hopes for a good ride with no rain.

We decided to all wear fun sunglasses in hopes that the sun would come out

We knocked out the first 30 miles no problem and when we hit the half way point, we were happy to only have one monster hill to go on the ride.

At about mile 40, Rebecca and I were riding slow because we had gotten in front of Thanh. I glanced back over my left shoulder (which I often do when riding with other people) to see where Thanh was and didn't notice that I was veering off to the right. My front wheel went off the pavement, into the gravel shoulder and when I went to correct it and get back on the road my bike wasn't having it and sent me down to the ground really quickly. I can't believe how quickly it all happened.

I went down kind of to my left. I don't know what part of my body hit the ground first, but I felt the impact most on my chin and forehead. I then felt bikes on top of me and heard Rebecca saying "oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Megan!" The next thing I know I have people all around me asking me a million questions as I see a constant run of blood off my face making a pool on the concrete. The first thing I remember doing is running my tongue across all my teeth making sure they were all there. Thankfully they were.

The people that stopped were so helpful. One of them had gauze with them so this nurse and another man (I think his name was Stuart) held those on my wounds while someone else who stopped called 911. I didn't know how bad I was hurt. I seriously thought I just needed a bandaid and I could then go finish the ride, so I was surprised when I asked and the man holding my wound said I had a 2 inch gash on my forehead and I'd probably need stitches.

Nice nurse and man, so thankful for them

While I was laying on the road waiting for the medics, I wasn't really concerned about myself, which is strange in hindsight. I was thinking about 1) how embarrassed I felt for doing something so stupid 2) felt horrible for ruining Rebecca and Thanh's bike ride 3) if I was still going to be able to go on my business trip to Toronto/New York this week 4) where is my bike?! Funny what kind of things you think about when you get hurt.

The medics arrived and did their thing, strapped me to a board, put a neck brace on (just in case I had any head/neck injuries) and drove me off in the aid car to the hospital. I tried to say thank you to everyone who stopped and helped, but I'm sure I missed a lot. If somehow you are a person who stopped and are reading this, THANK YOU!

The ER doctor decided to bring in a Plastic Surgeon to do my stitches because of the fact that it was my face they were dealing with and Plastic Surgeons apparently have better technique so less chance of huge scaring. I will have scars, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Before I got cleaned up

I'd smile, but it kind of hurts...

It's now been over 24 hours since the fall and I'm feeling okay. I can't make any facial expressions with my eyebrows or else it pulls at the stitches and it kind of hurts my chin to smile big, so I've been just trying to keep any kind of face movements to a minimal.

But I am okay, thank goodness. It could have been a lot worse. And my bike is okay. Did I learn anything from this experience? Yes. Bring some first aid supplies, especially on long rides where you don't know the route. Always wear your Road ID. Mine came in handy as it had my parents phone numbers on it and I just had to give it to my friend and she took care of contacting them.

Phew. What a weekend. I'm going to sleep.