So I finally did sign up to do the sprint at Lake Mary here in Flagstaff. I decided I just needed to do a race to get myself kickstarted again. I didn't come anywhere near completing my training plan for it, but it's just a sprint, so not that big a deal in my mind. I thought I might still be able to break my PR for the bike, so that was my focus during the race.
I decided not to use a wetsuit for the swim (most people wore them). I figured it was short enough that the time lost during transition getting it off was not worth the gain in floatation during the swim. I'm not sure if that had to do with it, but my swim time was very slow... and I felt like I had a decent pace... so my suspicion is that the course was actually farther than it was supposed to be, but that is probably not right, I should just accept that I was slower than I thought (and than what I should have been).
I got through transition 1 ok, and was off on the bike. Knowing this course pretty well I had planned on pushing myself hard until at least the turn and downhill near the very end of the lake (mostly uphill to that point). I was working pretty hard and doing well, until the road turned to all gravel / not completed pavement. I didn't expect this (skipped any pre-race meetings), but was ok with it at first. I kept on working hard trying to keep a good pace on the uphill to try to improve overall.
But... there were no markings of the shoulder, and I was wearing my sunglasses when it wasn't that sunny... and long story short I didn't see the edge of the 'good' gravel where it started to slope down and be a bit more loose. I went over this edge, started getting pulled to the right, tried to turn a bit to get back up on the solid road, but my front tire washed out and I went right over the bars. I landed on pretty much my whole left side, smashed my glasses into my face, really skinned my left hand, had some road rash from head to toe basically. It wasn't really that bad, the worst of it was my hand and also my leg was bleeding a bit.
I got up and tried to get myself back together. Assessing myself I was okay, sprayed some water on my hand to rinse it out a bit, and tried to make sure I didn't have gravel embedded. Taking a few breaths I decided that I was ok to continue... but then I looked at my bike. I had wrenched the handlebars completely sideways, and my front wheel wasn't spinning freely at all. I got it back to where I could walk it, but at that point I just decided I was done. This is my big regret about the race. I just crossed the street and started walking my bike back along the road, hoping there would be a race official in a pickup or something to take me back to transition. People kept asking if I was alright and I'd say I was ok... then one guy came across to help me with the bike. He just twisted the handlebars back around with the wheel between his legs (what I should've done), and then messed with the front brakes a bit to get it rolling again. I should have just done this myself before starting to walk back, then I could've finished the bike part at least. But since I had already walked a mile back, I was just done and coasted back to the transition to leave. So, it felt good to be back in the mix, but I wish I had spent a couple more minutes trying to get rolling again rather than just giving up after the wreck. Of course, even better would have been to not wreck in the first place, but oh well...
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