My First Trip to the Emergency Room

To say that I had a bike "accident" is an overstatement.....

It was my first group training ride using my new clip shoes (the shoes that lock your feet to the pedals to more evenly distribute all the energy to all your muscles), and I was still getting used to them. As we were preparing to ride, I completely forgot that I had already clipped in one foot when I stopped to say hello to a fellow teammate. When I put tried to put my left foot down, I had just enough time to think "oh crap" before my knee went crashing down onto the jagged asphalt.

Obviously, I was incredibly embarrassed... but also bleeding profusely. I looked at it briefly and saw it was pretty deep, but I didn't want anyone to think I was a baby. So, I just slapped some gauze on it and pretended it didn't hurt.

I'll skip the details of the 40 miles I biked with the injury... and the other 2 times I fell on it after that due to the fact that my loose-fitting clips kept reattaching themselves without me knowing it, even after I had already clipped out in preparation to stop. Needless to say, the third time I fell in front of the entire team, I had had enough. My handlebars swung back and whacked me in the face, breaking my sunglasses, which then slashed my face and flew off. A few choice words followed the incident, and my coach suggested we take a look at how my knee was doing.

It's by no means a cool injury story, but at least I can say I biked for 40 miles on a knee that ended up getting 4 stitches (it would have been 8, but that would had time enough to heal just enough to prevent stitches). But it also cost me 2 weeks of training since the location of the injury limited my knee movement. I'm back on the bike again, but way behind on my training - I'll be out another 2 group rides since I'll be on vacation. Please keep me in your thoughts this September since I will have a lot of catching up to do!

This is Erin, clipping out .......