Returning to the scene of the crime

Today was a beautiful day for a bike ride.  It was one of those memorable Pacific Northwest summer days, and I decided to ride outside for the first time since my accident.  The good news is that my Cervelo is still a great ride and I remained upright.  I even managed to take the corners without freaking out.  The bad news is that the axiom "use it or lose it" is definitely true in cycling.  I didn't feel too terrible, but was riding pretty slowly (18.6 MPH and 153 Watts for the entire ride).  But at least I was outside.  And then I decided that I needed to revisit the scene of my crash.  As I rolled through the corner, I understood better why I might have crashed:  the pavement in the corner is pretty chewed up, and traction is pretty bad, even on a dry day like today.  On a rainy day, it's a pretty bad corner.

So now, I wait for surgery later this week.  It will be a plate, some screws, and some bone grafting.  Then, back to the "chair of healing" in hopes that everything will completely heal.  I didn't think that it would be nearly 6 months until I would be back to training, but I guess that's the way it goes sometimes.

I have heard that the worst of Hurricane Irene has passed the major population centers on the East Coast.  I hope that all of those who live there are doing well and are safe.  My best wishes to everyone there.

The summer of my discontent

Lack of motivation... lack of sense-of-being... frustration that I'm not healed.  It could be all of them. Obviously, I haven't been motivated enough to write anything down, since my last entry was over a month ago.  My longest run has been 5 miles, and I'm fat and out of shape.  Before we left on our trip to California, I decided to make a decision as to whether I would have surgery done, based on how I felt on the trip.  Well... I'm back now, and am going to have the clavicle fixed.  I have an appointment tomorrow with the surgeon, and will set a surgery date then.  Yesterday, the biggest decision was whether I was going to go to San Diego to get it fixed or stay here.  After talking it over with Tracy and Richard (not me, the other Richard... no, I'm not getting all weird and third person-ish on you), I decided I'd stay here, even though I did consider Dave's offer seriously.

I guess the lack of motivation on the trip was that, if I was planning to get it fixed and have to deal with immobility again, what was the point of getting up early just to run slow?  I'm just going to end up in the chair-of-healing again.

On a positive note, at least the vacation was fun, and it was kind of cool running past vineyards.  I even managed to run along part of the Vineman course, and some of the markings were still on the pavement.  Well, that's for another year.