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It has been about two weeks since the accident. A long two weeks of sitting still, nursing wounds, pathing holes and waiting for nature to take its course. The leg went from a bleeding mess that looked like it would never clot, to a buldging balloon like mass pressing its way out from the knee cap, to a band of fluid that made walking tolerable and riding possible. Some would say that I was crazy to get out there then. Some would say that I was foolish to get back on the bike now. I call it discipline. If you can then you must. If you cant, heal until you can.
That day, Sunday two weeks ago, it was a energetic mess. Having woken early I had already completed my pushups and reading for the day. Seeing how this was a new habit I was attempting to form, it was deemed impressive to accomplish them so quickly. Like the other tasks in my habit list, the little notions and suggestions, whispered in the background.
You don’t have to
No one is watching
This is stupid
There is no reward
What is the point
There is no goal
No throne
No cheering crowds
No flying streamers
There is no reason to hurt like this.
No reason to suffer like this
No reason to work this hard
You look foolish
Dumb
Stupid
No one cares
On and on they whisper. As distinct as the wind and as loud as the rustling grass. In time I have learned to let them talk. Let me go on with all the reasons why I don’t have to do this. I listen to them. Only for a moment. If I give their concerns merit, I might sit out one day. That leads down a dark lonely, empty path. One day becomes two. Two days, become a week. A week becomes a month. So on and so forth until I am back on the couch. Back watching people pretend to live their lives, under perfect lighting, with a studio audience. I go back to filling my gut with sugar, and salt. Going broke on DVD’s streaming services, and movies. Living for the next big release. Watching myself devolve in to a mindless blob that cant walk up a flight of stairs without loosing breath. Sure, it’s comfortable. Its relaxing. Its nice. But what is comfort without a little pain? What would I be relaxing from? What would happen if God forbid I am needed and I cant get myself off the couch? Or worse what happens if I get to the doctors office and I learn that my body has finally adjusted to the lavish lifestyle. I can no longer produce what I need to survive. I need to depend on drugs, shots, injections and treatments. Suddenly getting up on the bike for about two hours doesn’t seem so bad.
This was my thought process that day. The same fear that drove me to get on the bike in the first place, had led me to getting on the bike again. I dressed up in my riding uniform, a cycling bib and jersey, a bike loaded up with tools and water, a helmet, sunglasses with my prescription inside and a choice or routes to take. It didn’t matter what route. The hills would be only a challenge once no matter what route I took. The long lonely climbs would be for a moment, just a moment in the scheme of things. Sure they would hurt for the moment. They are supposed to hurt. It is the overall ride, the ride as a whole that would be enjoyed. I hopped out of the house, glancing at the weather report before darting to the top of the block. The report called for clouds, no rain. No threat of rain, no chance of rain, just clouds. After a scorching summer of humid days and burning nights, the cool fall wind was welcome. I stopped at a local gas station to grab a quick bite to eat. My usual, a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, with a sports drink and probably a piece of chicken. In the time that I had been riding early in the morning, I have learned that getting on the road with an empty stomach is a poor choice. Feeling your body shut down, being dizzy, tired and hot all at the same time, just the memory of it is enough to turn my stomach.
After eating I took to the road again, the sky was covered in dark storm clouds. They moved overhead slowly. If rain was coming then it was still far enough out that I could not hear the droplets fall. I checked the weather report again. Still no calls for rain. My first instinct was to head home. At least there I could navigate back to the house quickly should the report fall short. I could. That would mean that I would have to loop the neighborhood. It was safer, and mindnumbingly boring. Be the loops be three miles, five miles or eight miles, a loop is a loop. Circling one time around a loop to complete the ride felt better than to circle time and time again, hoping that I didn’t lose count. I pushed on.
Up and down, over the interstate, around the housing communities, past the malls, through the town squares and finally approaching the historic district. This was the halfway point. The air was so lush and cool that I played with the idea of biking past this point and proceeding up to the next small town. This would give me an additional twenty plus miles. Forty miles for the day. That was when the first droplets struck my helmet. The cool water bounced off the plastic outer shell of the helmet and on to my exposed scalp. I was having fun. “What is a little rain.” I thought. One by one the droplets continued to fall. First saturating the dry asphalt beneath the tires, the collecting on the display of my bicycle’s computer. Suddenly the narrative went from “What is a little rain?” to “I don’t need to be in the rain.” There was no need to get a cold or worst while just pedaling the bike. Logic screamed repeatedly, in harmony with panic, fear and confusion. On the one hand I could turn back the way that I came. It would only give me at most eighteen miles for the day but at least that was eighteen miles outside. Or, and this was the dangerous choice, I could finish this little part of the ride and be done with it. I would have the ride complete with only a wet jersey and a few components that would need to be re-lubricated. Before I could make a decision, I was turning left on to complete the ride.
Vale road is a quiet stretch of asphalt. The rain pummeled and pounded against the street filling the small depressions with water. The communities all face away from the street making it hard for anyone to ‘see’ if there was a problem. In the past one could be in an out of this stretch before anyone (or karen) could become suspicious. In the rain, the familiar signs and friendly displays where covered in a mix of water fog and rising sweat. I cut through one of the communities to avoid the steep descent that awaited at the end of the street.
The route twisted and turned, taking the bike and I in front of homes that looked more expensive and more polished than anything that could be photoshopped in a magazine. The falling water did nothing by accentuate the white siding, washing the already wax bright cars, push the garden debris to the side, allowing for the clean side walk and sharpened edges to stand out. As I pedaled on, turning and balancing on the bike hoping to keep upright, the rain persisted. It was coming down hard, and fast. At the end of the community was a short steep (sharp) drop. When approaching from the other side this drop was a challenge to ascend. From this side, following the flowing traffic that traced a path along the running lake, it was an accident waiting to happen. I fluttered the cable actuated brakes, hoping that they would allow the wheels to spin and maintain control so that I would not ram in to the car infront of me. For a moment, I was moving with traffic flawlessly. Sheepishly walking the bike behind a car as it made the sharp almost ninety degree turn down what much have been a negative twelve to fifteen percent grade. Then the car stopped suddenly. I grabbed a hand full of brake. The back wheel slide from underneath me an I was in a free fall. The car sped off, vanishing in to the distance. My helmet bounced off the asphalt grinding my knee, elbow and thumb knuckle as I slide down in to the grass.
I jumped up. Immediately I knew something was wrong. My knee was raw. A clean layer of skin had been ground from the flesh. The more I tried to walk on it the stiffer my knee became. I couldn’t bend it let alone walk. A pair of older women offered me a ride. In hindsight I should have taken it. At the time I assumed the bike was fine. After all it wasn’t like I was on a carbon fiber work of art. I was riding the aluminum bike. A bike made for crashing and falling. I raised my hand declining their offer. As they drove off I looked down at the chain to see my derailleur dangling. A single rotation of the wheels sent it in to the spokes. It was then that my situation set in. I was in the middle of a deep valley, near water, during a shower, with no one to call, no one to help and I had refused the only people that wanted to take me home. I managed to wave down a passing motorist and asked for help. Help that was swiftly refused. “Don’t you have friends or family you can call?” He spoke. “I’m busy, ask someone else.” I can still hear his words through the droplets. Clear as day and just as cold. In the valley, the only way out was to climb up a sharp steep ascent. I was not like I had not overcome such obstacles before.
I thought back to the time when my car had broken down more than ten miles from my mothers’ home. She was surprised the following morning when the same car, the car that had needed a tow and about few thousand dollars of transmission work, was sitting on the side of the house, and her eldest son was in bed, sound asleep, drain from exhaustion. It had been done before. Over hills, around corners, through traffic lights and down fast descents. The only difference now was that I would have to do it in bicycle cleats, in the rain, with a busted-up knee, while bleeding. I looked around and noticed a small SUV aside my crash site, with its trunk open. The driver had appeared to be moving items from the back to the front to place them on the floor of the dropped seats. I limped over and asked for a ride. “I was wondering if you were going to notice me.” He smiled. “Not sure how we are going to fit that in the back. I don’t think I have the room.” The weight on my head and heart lifted. After the quiet ride home and the deep gratitude I intended to express, the first order to business was to get the wound cleaned and dressed. I drowned the open skin in hydrogen peroxide. The feeling of the bubbling liquid was of angry hornet attacking the tender flesh. Of all the bandages I owned, I could not find one large enough to cover the wounds entirely.
For the next two weeks, the only thing I allowed myself to do was to eat, sleep, perform my pushups and tend to the wounds. My skin was flavor town of ointments and grease. The time off the bike, while long overdue, brought with it a concern of losing the fitness that I had spent two year building. There was not much I could do to speed up the process. Ice would only subdue the outward appearances of the dressings. Any injections or treatments would aggravate the swelling thus prolonging the time off the bike. It was better to sit still. Just to relax and move only when absolutely needed to get around. The fear like the distant rustle of the wind before a storm whistled in the back of my mind.
It has been a long road. From the moment that the commitment was made that winter, riding day in and day out. Sitting on the trainer on the inclimate days, pushing the bike back and forth to the park when the sun shone and the wind was still. Tasting my own blood as I pushed the pedals. Feeling my legs, arms, back and neck burn from the position. Fighting my way up the hills, walking when my legs and crotch could take the beating. It has been a long hard consistent road. To think that any part of that journey, to walk that walk again all because I left myself sit to still to long, that storm, to walk through those gates again, under that sky, against that ground, in that heat, with only my will and determination to push me through. This was a thought best retired to the deep dreams. A nightmare best kept in the closet or under the bed in the death of night. Should it come to pass, there would be no choice but to walk the walk. Coming out on the other side, perhaps stronger, faster, smarter, overall better than I am now. It would be hard. It would be painful. But like most things that take a toll, it would be something not easily lost.
This reasoning tempered storm. It allowed me to sleep soundly when the day was done and more sparingly during the day. When the lighting struck of times that could come, or the days that might happen, I shivered. It would be painful. It would be taxing. Then I would smile at the smoldering ember, watching them cool under the knowledge that no matter how far I would fall, I wouldn’t be starting from the bottom. The fitness, the knowledge, the routes, the training would still be with me partially. I would have something to take with me into the storm, beyond the gates. When nature called, I limped my way to the restroom, carefully allowing the natural course to run safely. The thought of wasting away never crossed my mind. The notion to just allow what will come, never felt like something that was out of my control. I had weathered the storm. I had fought the rain. This was not the end it was only a small setback that felt completely controllable. I could see myself being better in the future. I could Invision myself biking again, riding again, being outside in the sun, under the wind, again. It was as real as the words on the page. This too gave me home. It was my shelter, my refuse when the harsh pain and immobilization became apparent.
Walking was out of the question. Getting myself to rise from the bed was a journey in balance and strength. My leg was a fixed log that I dare not touch, let alone apply pressure to for fear of a shooting pain or clumsily falling over. It took me what felt like minutes to walk down a single flight of stairs to get to my home office. It took even longer to get back up the stairs to the restroom. During the day I would order food via the phone or online. When it arrived, I limped my way to the door and nestled my arms. While it would have been financially responsible and physically healthier to drive to the store for my dinner, that would involve getting to the store by car, (driving) and carrying bags of food from the store to the car and from the car to the house. Walking was out of the question.
As things were, tasks needed to be done. Worked needed to be performed. Chores still needed to be completed. Food needed to be eaten. The house needed to be tended. With every motion, every moment, a painful reminder that I was operating on only one leg triggered. Be it attempting to walk or stand, the fact that I was moving slower than an angry teen-ager who was denied tickets to homecoming. For a moment it was hard to tell what hurt more, the pain from my leg, or the embarrassment. The passing glances from people watching me limp in an out of my car. The curious stares from neighbor watching me struggle to take out the trash. The murmurs from co-workers, as I made my way around the office. The side glances from those in the elevator. All of it a harsh reminder that I hurt, with no business being out and about. Work, chores, tasks responsibilities all needed to be performed and met to a standard. There was no time to sit around and sulk. No time to just be still and heal. No time at all. I needed to get things done. I told myself if I could open my eyes then I was healthy enough to move. To keep motivated I started a new routine. Cutting out bike riding and the reading, kept the pushups. I would continue to progress with my twenty repetitions per day. That progress admittedly was harder to sacrifice. I would pray every night as I did as a child and push at least one set everyday. The rest of the time, the time that I spend hating the predicament I was in, would be spent sitting in bed, and healing or sleeping. The rides would be harder but that was to be expected. The reading would only serve as entertainment, where it was use initially to get my senses geared for writing. What was the point of writing when sitting at a keyboard was more of a chore than going to the restroom.
By the end of the first week, the bandages from the wounds were starting to peel themselves. The exposed skin had started to scab over. I had a little more mobility in my grapefruit knee. Getting out of bed and limping to the rest room now came slightly easier. Slightly. I would press my weight enough to balance while limping. It was a fight to get up and down stairs. Without the assistance of the bar, I would have surely fallen. The wound needed to be exposed to allow the healing process to continue. Having a dangling band-aid, clinging on to my leg hair did nothing but add complications to an already tender area. Almost without thinking, one early morning, I reached down and snatched the gooey patch off my skin. The blood that initially streamed down my leg had it all flaked over. It formed little chunks of me that flaked off under the slightest touch. The outer parts of the tender pink flesh were soft to the touch. There was more missing than I thought. Healing had started sure and true. From one of my co worker, I had learned that it was not good to coat the wound in Neosporin. The chemicals and bacteria that it provides do well for closing a wound but not aid in healing. A complete reversal of what the commercials and ads would have us believe. It was better to use a petroleum-based grease. This would allow the skin to stay moist and give the cells in the wound the medium needed to move, thus speeding up the healing process. As sound as the logic was, it was not coming from a medical professional. For that I would need to pay a deductible, wait more than a half an hour to be moved to a room where I would wait another hour an a half just to have someone passively read my question on a notepad before asking me why I was there. This co worker had survived such an injury as a runner and as a cyclist. Their battle scars were all but invisible. According to them the remedy was grease and patience.
I gave it a go. Smothering the exposed pink skin in grease, keeping it open allowing the air to brush against my skin. When I moved it was not a problem. There was little notice of it. Anything that would touch my skin was quickly noticed and the grease was quickly removed. When I slept, sat or just wanted to sit and rest, that was when the grease would spread unnoticed. I would wake to find little puddles of flowing grease soaking in my sheets, covers and running over and across my arm an leg. Gone was the gooey sticky jelly I had applied the night before. In its place was a slippery almost watery substance, eager to fly an saturate anything and everything. For a while, it was easier to sleep on the hardwood floor as opposed in the comfort of my bedroom.
By the end of the second week, mobility had all but returned. The fully formed scab had started to flake away revealing a close pink layer of skin. Walking was a little easier. The pain of pressing my weight was replaced with pressure against my kneecap. When the leg straightens, there is a sense of a thick band driving the bone upwards. Then it relaxed, it was as if the band was removed. I was no longer limping around so much as I was waiting for the strength to come into my leg to make it to the restroom. The strength and flexibility in my knees brought the light of being able to ride the bike again. Suddenly the thought of riding, keeping and building upon the fitness I had already gained seemed possible. I no longer felt that the dream of completing a race was something left to the sands of time. It was now possible. It was something that could happen. Even if it wasn’t right now at this moment. The stuttering step and the quick grasp of the guard rail, would pass soon enough, and with them the sweet release of the cool fall air, the free flowing of blood, the pound of the heart and the gentle whisper of the falling leaves would await. It was possible. It was likely. It was only a matter of time.
By: | Na Derro Cartwright |
Started in: | Harford County, MD, US |
Distance: | 25,0 mi |
Selected: | 25,0 mi |
Elevation: | + 921 / - 939 ft |
Moving Time: | 01:42:04 |
Gear: | The Rock (AL Cannondale 2023) |
Page Views: | 8 |
Departed: | 02.10.2023, 05:40 |
Starts in: | Harford County, MD, US |
Distance: | 25,0 mi |
Selected distance: | 25,0 mi |
Elevation: | + 921 / - 939 ft |
Max Grade: | |
Avg Grade | |
Cat | |
FIETS | |
VAM | |
Ascent time | |
Descent time | |
Total Duration: | 01:44:34 |
Selection Duration: | 6274 |
Moving Time: | 01:42:04 |
Selection Moving Time: | 01:42:04 |
Stopped Time: | 00:02:30 |
Max Speed: | 26,6 mph |
Avg Speed: | 14,7 mph |
Pace: | 00:04:10 |
Moving Pace: | 00:04:04 |
Max Cadence: | 114 rpm |
Min Cadence: | 10 rpm |
Avg Cadence: | 76 rpm |
Max HR: | 178 bpm |
Min HR: | 125 bpm |
Avg HR: | 154 bpm |
Best format for turn-by-turn directions on modern Garmin Edge Devices
Best format for turn by turn directions on Edge 500, 510. Will provide true turn by turn navigation on Edge 800, 810, 1000, Touring including custom cue entries. Great for training when we release those features. Not currently optimal for Virtual Partner.
Useful for uploading your activity to another service, keeping records on your own computer etc.
Useful for any GPS unit. Contains no cuesheet entries, only track information (breadcrumb trail). Will provide turn by turn directions (true navigation) on the Edge 705/800/810/1000/Touring, but will not have any custom cues. Works great for Mio Cyclo. Find GPS specific help in our help system.
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