CRASH!!!

The morning after the Daffodil 5K challenge, I crawled out of bed like stiff old lady.  Ouch.  I slept terrible because my ankles and calves were so, so sore.  It hurt to even move them in bed.  I'd wake up to turn over, and I couldn't even kick my husband when he snored.  I yelled at him to turn over instead.  My abs, shoulders, back and neck were pretty sore too.  I'm still tellin' ya... Half marathons are easier!

So I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee and put ice packs around each ankle.  Turns out I sorta freezer-burned myself with them.  I didn't even know that was possible!  I googled about what happens when you leave an ice pack on too long... and yep.  It's a thing.  It's like a gave myself frostbite.  My skin doesn't even feel like skin.  It's red and rough.  Here's what it looks like...

So, that sucked.  Especially when I went in the hot tub after.  Owweeeee!!!  Anyway, to try to get over how stiff and sore I was, I thought it would be a good idea to go for an easy recovery bike ride with the husband and kids.  Try to spin out my legs a bit.  VK Sista' was going to come but she was feeling terrible all morning.  Puking and feeling light-headed.  :(  Poor gal.  She'll probably never run with me again. 

So we packed up the bikes and kiddos and headed for the Cedar River Trail.  My husband is able to attach the kid trailer to the back of his new Soma instead of pulling our daughter on his mountain bike, so that was pretty great.  And our son started off riding really well.  It was a nice day and my legs felt better almost instantly.  At just about a mile in, I looked down and realized that I forgot to pull my jacket's thumb hole over my thumb and there was a lot of cold air going up my left arm.  Well, I'm pretty darn comfortable on my bike now that I've been cycling for so long.  And everyone was riding along great.  So instead of stopping to fix it, I decided to try to let go of my handlebars for half a second to put my jacket over my thumb.  Bad idea.  Clearly I am not as skilled as I thought I was.  When I reached over with my right hand, my body went left and my bike went right.  I slammed down hard at about 12 MPH.  In the split second I knew there was nothing I could do, I curled up into a ball and let my shoulder and elbow take the fall.  It was exactly 1 year to the day that my husband took his big fall and broke his thumb, and sprained his wrist.  (Isn't that weird?  No more rides for us on April 12th ever again!)  So the only thing that went through my head was, "Don't try to catch yourself with your hands!"  It was like a "Stop, drop, and roll!" reflex. 

My body skidded to a halt on my left side and I just laid there with my eyes closed trying to mentally make sense of what happened and what parts of me hurt.  My first thought was, "Okay, that wasn't as bad as I thought.... I hope."  I wasn't clipped into my bike pedals anymore and I really didn't know where my bike was.  The wind was knocked out of me and I was trying to catch my breath.  My husband came right up and asked me what hurt but I didn't really know yet.  I wanted to say, "I'm fine." but I knew I wasn't really.  I just said I didn't know, and I told him not to touch me while I tried to breathe.  A few people stopped on the trail and asked if we needed help and I just wanted to get off the ground as fast as possible.  I knew my elbow hurt.  And it felt like my shoulder and hip hurt too but there was so much adrenaline I really didn't know.  I was alive so that was good.  Ha.

I rolled over onto my back and sorta hung out there for a few seconds just trying to process everything.  And then I sat up and my husband started looking me over.  He said it looked like my head hit the ground but he checked out my helmet and it looked ok.  Then he noticed my cycling jacket was torn and dirty on my shoulder so he told me to pull it down so he could check it out.  Hmm, whadaya know... All scratched and bruised but I couldn't really feel it.  My shoulder looked kinda funky with what looked like bruised bumps sticking up.  He asked if my collar bone was ok and asked if I could move my shoulder.  It seemed stiff but otherwise okay.  My son pointed out that my ankle was bleeding.  I stood up and tried to move around a bit and brush the dirt off.  Then I noticed my watch...  

Ack!!!  I wonder if that'll buff out?  This thing is not cheap!  So, my next thought?  I better take some pics of all this and text them to VK Sista'!  Lol.  So that's what I did...

My elbow hurt most but I didn't want to take off my jacket and my arm warmer to check it out.  There was no blood seeping through my jacket or anything so I figured it was ok.  My husband put my chain back on, kinda banged on the hoods to make them straight again, and gave the whole bike a once-over.   He wanted to turn back but I came out here so I wouldn't be as sore and I didn't want to stop and tense up even more.  I told him I wanted to continue on even though he thought it was a bad idea.  

I rode along pretty shaky and the adrenaline started wearing off and I noticed more places hurting. My hip hurt, my back felt tweaked, and it started hurting to hold myself up with my bad arm.  Continuing on was probably a bad idea.  Husband stopped and gave me some ibuprofen and we turned around to go back.  4 miles total.  Grr.  When we got back to the car, I took my jacket and arm warmer off...

Ouch!  Road rash freaking stings!!  I was feeling kinda sick to my stomach riding home googling the best road rash relief.  I noticed my knee kinda hurt so I lifted my bike pants up and found more road rash...

My husband stopped by Walgreens to pick up some first aid… and some "liquid medication."  He's the best.  

This was us last year though so he owes me.  :)  It's still so weird that this happened exactly a year ago to the day.  I just can't get over that.  Weird, weird, weird.  

As I sat around at home eating a calzone that we ordered and drinking my wine, more and more places started to hurt.  The inside of my right arm and right leg.  This must be where I hit my bike as I fell off.

And this is how lovely I looked when I woke up this morning...

Bruises, bruises everywhere.  I asked the Vanderkitten group what to buy for road rash and someone suggested Tagaderm.  That's what that plastic-looking stuff is over my wounds.  It was kinda pricy but totally worth it.  Feels so much better!  It's like an extra skin and I was able to shower last night.  It's the same stuff they use to put over top of an IV, or a surgical incision.  Fantastic stuff.  I used a lot of Neosporin that also has "pain relief" in it too.

Other than all this I feel like I have whiplash.  It kills to move my neck.  It also hurts to lift my arm or use my left shoulder.  Aaaannd… My left hip hurts when I put pressure on my left leg.  And my back just feels super tweaked.  Not to mention my ankles, calves, hamstrings, abs, etc all still hurt from the run.  I'm a freaking wreck.

It could have been a lot worse!  At least there's no broken bones for me!  I had to wear yoga pants to work today because it hurts to wear my dark jeans.  And don't get me started on how much it hurt to put my bra on.  I could barely lift my daughter into the car this morning, and I couldn't reach the straws at the espresso stand I go to in the morning.  Luckily the owner is a cyclist and I talk to him all the time so I told him what happened and he helped me grab straws.  I'm such a gimp.  lol.  I hope I heal enough to do the Adventure Run on Thursday night with Cousin.  I don't think I'm going to be able to go to the gym with VK Sista' on Tuesday though.  I gotta give myself a couple of days to recover.

Off to take more ibuprofen, and my AdvoCare vitamins...