A trauma filled weekend…

Getting really sick last week was definitely a big shock to the system, but this weekend was by far the icing on the cake! While pre-riding the bike course with Will and Ryan Thursday afternoon, I crashed and fell off the trail straight into a whole bunch of rocks and branches. Once my bike and I stopped rolling down, I got up and saw a fairly large branch stuck in the side of my leg. I immediately yanked it out and it started profusely bleeding. I screamed for the boys to come help me out and we all agreed that we should head to the hospital. The worst part about the whole crash was that the course had been mismarked and we weren’t even on the actual race course! Grrrr. Below are some pictures Will took while I was getting the works done at the ER. He was so very intrigued by the numbing, cleaning, stitching, etc. It was pretty funny!

Friday was a pretty uneventful day, thank goodness, with the usual pre-race swim/bike/run, packet pick up, group dinner, and last minute bike issue routine. Since the doctor put me on antibiotics and gave me this skin tight tape-like stuff to put over my leg, I got the okay to race. However, I wasn’t going to make that decision until I knew I could run and bike. I fell pretty hard and was super sore, not to mention covered with bruises, so I wasn’t sure how it would go. After a quick jog in the morning with CJ and a loop of the upper section on the bike later on, there was only minor gushing of the puncture from opening the stitch, but nothing too terrible…SO GAME ON!!!

You’ll get the detailed race report later, but here’s the general gist. Had a decent swim, tried to stay with some of the super fast women on the bike, but just couldn’t hang (remember, I didn’t do ANYTHING last week so I was flat as hell), then got out sprinted to the finish for the overall amateur win. UGH. After that was ALL downhill L I got really dizzy so Ryan took me to the medical tent were I began blacking in and out and eventually started convulsing and going numb everywhere. My heart rate was through the roof and my blood pressure and temp were dropping like crazy. Luckily, Kate was there to get me through the worst part along with every medical personnel at the tent. I literally thought I was going to die as I couldn’t breathe, everything was shaking like crazy and I couldn’t feel anything in my body. They immediately flipped me upside down, got an IV started and wrapped me in that crazy foil blanket to keep me warm. After an hour or so of sheer hell, I finally started to calm down with the help of Kate, Ryan and Will and ended up going through 2 bags of fluid. That was probably one of the scariest things I have ever experienced and will definitely be on my mind the next time I’m not consuming enough fluids while racing.

When we got back, I really didn’t have much of an appetite and felt pretty crappy, but once we got to the awards ceremony and met up with all our friends, things were starting to get better. We ended up going bowling until 1am which was a blast but woke up 3hrs later to get to the airport to catch a flight back home with CJ. Definitely feeling the effects of putting my body through absolute hell, but plan on taking some down time this week and really start focusing on my mountain biking!

Big props to everyone else who kicked butt in Ogden as well. Branden finished a stellar 6^th and just seconds from the podium, Ignatz was top 10, Will sneaked in to get a paycheck for the day in 12^th while Christine was 11^th in the women’s race. Also having great results were DeCook, Matt, Kate and Spencer!

As always, check out the 'My Pics' link on the right for all the fun pictures from the weekend!