It's only a flesh wound. . . .

I was doing great actually, on the first first lap, until 7.8 miles in. I was moving up to pass some one on one of the stair step hills, he was a little slow going up the hills. And he moved over to the left to block me causing me to move and hit the guys wheel at my 11 o'clock. Our wheels rubbed and he got up and sprint leaving my wheel unbalanced causing me to go down.

I was in the top 10 at the point and went down when i got up, well recovered from sliding on the pavement I immediately got into the fetal position as the field was still coming up the little hill behind us and I was in the middle of road. I was more concerned about some one running in to the back of me as I had no time to make a dash for the grass.

I got up, did a quick assessment of my self, lots of blood, shin, knee, hips, fingers, arm and shoulder. I took my helmet off and saw the headband was broken. At this time the trailing moto ref said "it looks like you can try and catch back on". with my helmet band cracked i didnt want to risk it again.

I picked my bike up straightened my handle bars and shifters. tried to clip in and pedal and then off comes my rear derailler. luckily it was just the hanger that broke. Well now my bike is effed and I almost 4 miles from the car so I start the walk back.

The pickup caravan sees me and gives me a ride back. I get back and walking over to my car when the ambulance stops me and has me sit down so they can begin to clean me up. I was going to go over to the ambulance after I set everything in my car.

Upon further inspection my helmet was actually cracked in several places, but I was feeling ok enough to drive home after they cleaned my wounds. After being home for about 30 minutes or so I called my wife and asked her to take me to the ER to get checked out.

I wanted to be sure everything was ok, I mean after all Billy Mayes, and Natasha Richardson both died from head trauma and injuries sustained hours after the initial impact.

The ER doc orders a CT scan of me noggin to make sure there is no swelling going on inside and nothing ruptured. CT scan comes back fine. Then the ER techs properly clean all of my wounds, which did me scrubbing them with soap and water, after they were numbed first thank God.

Left the ER after being there for just under 2 hours, relatively quick i thought. When I finally got a chance to review the garmin data, the final recordings of speed at 32 - 31 - 0. I will try to take a screen shot of it this afternoon to post up on my blog site.

As far as current injuries, in the ER it was described as "entire left side covers in abrasions". My shin, knee, quad, hip, top part of my fore arm, bottom part near my elbow, bicep, shoulder, and small chunks of skin missing on my fingers at the bend of the first knuckle where my gloves stopped, along with a few scrapes on my scalp.

Incidently enough almost all of the abrasions occurred on scar tissue from a crash last September in a triathlon when I went to fast into a left turn and hit gravel at the apex and the bike slid out from under me.

I rode my bike to work this morning, felt fine, just a little sluggish after being off it all day yesterday. I am just glad that for crashing at that speed I really only came away with just flesh wounds, it could have been a lot worse.

-jeremy