Cycling accident follow-up: fractured left finger

I finally got in to see the doctor today to have my left hand x-rayed and the results were a mix of good and bad news. With the Longhorn Half-Ironman now less than 11 weeks away, here is a brief summary of the x-rays and what my training looks like:

First, the bad news is that my left pinky finger is fractured, and i will need to wear a brace (picture) for the next 4 weeks to keep it immobilized. After that, the doctor believes my pinky and ring fingers can probably be "buddy-taped" together for a few more weeks and should heal back to normal. The bad news is that I will not be able to swim at all for at least the next 4 weeks. At thet point, the doctor will do another x-ray and it will just depend on it and how I feel as to how soon I can start swimming again. My guess is that I will be back in the pool sometime between August 20 and Septmber 1, which leaves me about 4-5 weeks to get back into swimming shape before the race.

The good news, actually great news, is that as long as I wear the brace I can continue to run and cycle just fine. Also, I need to thank God and reflect more on what happened and realize that my injuries could be signficantly worse.

I will improvise, I will adapt, I will overcome.

Bad Wreck (aka "Stupid Drivers Who Run Stop Signs")

This post was going to be about my 30th high school reunion on Saturday, but unfortunately that will have to wait because I'm writing (actually typing with just my right hand because my left hand is useless at the moment) about a bad wreck I had yesterday, and I feel very lucky to be alive.

I was at about mile 40 of a planned 50-60 miler and was on a 4 lane backstreet of a neighborhood that is probably overall the quietest and safest stretch of road I ride on. I am a VERY defensive cyclist, and any time I see a car approaching a stop sign, light or intersection I always presume they will do the wrong thing. I was in the right lane and could hear and then see a car approaching the cross street to my right. I had the right of way with no stop sign, and the approaching car had a stop sign. Per usual, I applied my breaks to slow down a bit, and also checked my mirror to make sure the left lane beside me was open in case this car did the wrong thing (note to avid cyclists who laugh at people like me with a mirror). It appeared at first that this guy was going to stop, but instead he just kept on cruising out into the right lane where I was. Stupid thing is, had he been paying attention AT ALL, he should have looked my way regardless to check for oncoming cars, but he didn't. There was no sun in his eyes, nothing to block his view of me, he was just flat out careless. Since I knew the left lane was open, I began moving over into it, but this idiot just kept on moving over across the right lane and into the left lane until I was forced into the curb.

I went over the handlebars and the next thing I know I am lying on my face in the road with my bike on top of me. I knew instantly that I was hurt, but could not tell how badly. I laid there for a moment trying to regain my composure. By this time, the driver had pulled back over into the right hand lane, stopped, rolled his window down and says, "Are you ok?" I can't really repeat what I said to him next, but it was not kind. I was yelling at him asking him why he did not stop, and all he could muster was a feable, "oh, I thought I did." Then I said, "Well, IF you did, then why did you pull out in front of me and continue to move over until I was forced into the curb?", to which of course he had no response.

The damage to my body was pretty good. I have a long and bloody scrape on my right elbow, bloody knuckles, bloody left knee, but the worst of the injuries is to my left hand. When I hit the pavement, I obviously braced most of my fall by putting my hands out. The back of my left hand is so swollen that you can not see anything but a dome of smooth skin. My left pinky and ringer finger have joints that have mounds on them, and I can barely even move them. The palm of my left hand is swollen and bruised looking. Also, I hit with such force that it literally ripped my watch off of my left arm and the watch face took skin off part of my left wrist. I do not know at this point if anything in my left hand is broken. Right after the wreck, I noticed the swelling there and was able to (not without some pain) bend my left pinky and ring finger, but this morning can not move them at all. If they are not better by tomorrow morning, I will probably go in for some xrays.






As for my bike, there are some good scratches on the left gear lever, which also got bent in slightly, and scratches to other parts of the bike, but not the frame. My cycling shorts and top both got scraped up pretty good and have holes in them. Thankfully the bike was fully functional and I was able to ride it home ok.

Not once, not a single solitary time, did this guy say he was sorry. I think that infuriated me more than his lack of driving skills. I made him give me his insurance information, and I made it VERY clear to him that if he dared to say that he stopped and/or yielded to me that I would have myself hooked up to a polygraph immediately and I expected him to do the same. I can tell you without any doubt that had I not been a safe and defensive driver that he would have run over me and things would be way worse. One thing that has surprised me, I am not scared in the least bit to ride again, I am quite simply extremely pissed off. This was 100% unequivocally this guy's fault, and I am sure that has something to do with my demeanor.

Great weekend of training in spite of oppressive Houston heat

With 12 weeks to go (as of yesterday) until the Longhorn 70.3 my training is going exceedingly well. This past weekend Houston had heat indexes well in excess of 100 degrees, and even the early morning or late evening temps were still above 95. Here is how my weekend went:

Saturday morning ran 15 miles in 1:57:45 (7:51 overall pace per mile), with a negative split from the first to second 7.5 mile loops that I run, and my last mile was in 7:51, which told me that I paced myself well from start to finish and didn't slow up coming in. The heat index was about 93 when I finished the run with humidity around 80%, so I feel really good about my effort under those conditions.

Saturday afternoon swam 2500m (1.55 miles) at about a 2:00-2:01 pace per 100m.

Sunday afternoon road 56.0 miles on the bike (longest ride to date and equal to the Half-Ironman distance) at about a 19-20 mph pace (just slightly under 3 hours).

I have also been keeping track of the percentage of miles put into swimming, cycling and running to see how close they are coming to the percentages of the 3 events in the Half-Ironman. Thus far, I am up about 2% in the swim, down about 5% in the cycling and up about 4% in the running. These numbers to me are good because the cycling is still by far the easiest of the 3 for me, and putting slightly more focus on the swim and especially the run I think will help me much more in my overall training and on race day.

I'd love any input or comments from you.

First "official" 50 mile ride

I got my bike one month ago today, and have been riding about 4 times a week. I know from familiarity with the area where I live that I've already done at least one ride of about 50 miles, but I made it official on Sunday after adding an odometer. I think what surprised me the most was that my average speed was consistently in the 17-20 mph range, and on one long stretch of road I got it up to around 23-34 mph and held that pretty comfortably for a few miles. Mind you, I am in Houston and all of these rides are on flat ground, but living close to the gulf we get a pretty steady wind of 20+ mph and so half of my rides are pretty much dead into that. I am still really enjoying the cycling portion of my training and have yet to experience anything remotely close to fatigue when I get off the bike to do bricks, even after the 50 miler. Right now my minimum rides are 50km or more (31.0+ miles) three times a week, and then Sunday afternoon is my long ride. I hope to consistently add a couple of miles a week to that ride and try my first century ride sometime in late August or early September (that would be about 5-6 weeks before the Longhorn 70.3).

Proud husband and father

This past weekend my wife Susan and my son Robert returned from a mission trip with UMArmy (sponsored by the United Methodist Church) to Orange, Texas that included about 70 high schoolers and 15 work team adults. Believe it or not, they were there to assist with home repairs of underpriviledged people who were still struggling from Hurricane Rita almost 2 years ago. Susan was a work team leader, which meant she led 6 teenagers in her group. They built a wheelchair ramp for an elderly lady who had lost her right leg from the knee down and had not been able to get out of the house for over a year (her group pictured below with the lady they helped).

My son's group repaired a roof on a house where for 2 years the family had to use buckets every time it rained because water just poured in, and they had a 4 year old son. On the last night of the trip, they were asked if they would like to speak about anything that week where they felt like they had seen the face of God at work. My son stood up and said that he saw the face of God through the people he helped who had so much less than he did, yet were happy. My wife said that she witnessed it when she was taking a picture of 6 sweaty, dirty teenagers standing proudly by an elderly lady whom they had never known before that week, but made such an impact on her life.

June Training Summary and Totals

I began cycling in June, so it was the first month that I incorporated swimming, cycling and running into my training. By adding the cycling this month, my running and swimming numbers went down slightly from May, but I realize that is part of the process and I am still very pleased with how the month went. Since getting my tri-bike ("Me-Cycle Aluminum" is what I named my bike) on June 9th, I have found thus far that cycling is definitely the easiest of the 3 disciplines for me. I have already done a number of 20-30 mile rides and one 50 mile ride with what I would consider minimal effort. I have been doing a lot of reading on bike setup and geometry and feel that I have the seat height, aero bars and my overall body positioned very well right now for my training. I may post a few pictures or a video of me on my bike in the near future to get some input from you more experienced cyclists and triathletes. Here are my June numbers:

Running: Ran a total of 152.8 miles which included 19 runs, average run was 8.04 miles with the longest single run being 14.0 miles (heat index reached 94 on that run) and the shortest run being 4.0 miles (a bonk run), and my average pace per mile for timed runs was 7:46. I am especially pleased with these numbers because the average heat index on all of my runs has been well into the 90's with humidity in the 70-100% range, and those temperatures exist early in the morning and after the sun goes down as well.

Swimming: Swam a total of 43.6km or 27.09 miles which included swimming 16 times, average swim was 2725m or 1.69 miles with the longest swim being 4000m or 2.49 miles (did that 3 times) and the shortest swim being 1600m or approximately 1 mile, and an average pace of approximately 1:57 per 100m (give or take a couple of seconds). I swam the 2.4 mile Ironman distance on June 18 in 1:18:19, just a shade over 2:00 per 100m, which I was very pleased with. I ended the month today with a 1600m swim in 29:39 (1:53 per 100m), an all-time PR for me for that distance.

Cycling: I cycled 12 times (starting June 9th) for a total of about 400 miles. I will have a much more accurate count on miles, time and speed in July because I just invested in an odometer that I will start using July 1.

EJECT! TOO LATE! CRASH! (Repeat)

ok, so I'm an idiot and still rather new to this cycling stuff. The box to the left are the contents of my Shimano clipless pedals and the clips that come with the clipless pedals (call me too logical, but why are they called "clipless" and yet they clip?). I guess I missed reading the instruction section that talked about unclipping your clipless pedals before coming to a complete stop.

Tonight I successfully had my second crash since I got the bike 3 weeks ago, and both of the crashes occured while I was at a dead stop. Now keep in mind, neither of these incidents did anything but bruise my ego and a couple of minor scratches to the bike. You see, twice now I have forgotten that I have on pedal clips. Yes, that's right, laugh all you want. I came to a complete stop both times, started to put my foot down to brace myself, then my mind registers, "OH NO DUMMY, YOU ARE STILL CLIPPED IN!" From this point, everything happens in what seems like slow motion as you teater back and forth for a second or two, then just collapse to the side. At least I can laugh about it (just like all the people riding by me are).