Stuck in Neutral: I broke myself.

Well unfortunately my training has come to an abrupt halt. This Wednesday I was over in Bethel going for a bike ride with Molly. It was a pretty typical 30 mile ride, nothing terribly challenging.  As we were rolling along, a dog sort of came out of nowhere. It wasn't barking, growling, or making any noise. It literally just came out of the bushes like a big brown blur. It hit my front wheel and spun it around, which sent me over the side of the bike, rolling onto the pavement. The first thing I hit was my shoulder, and then my head. Thankfully (since I'm still on mountain bike pedals) my feet popped right out and my bike skidded across the pavement. I rolled a little bit more and tried to sit up. When I did, my shoulder fired up with a nice burning painful sensation. I reached to touch it and realized I had a huge bump on my clavicle. The first thought that came to mind was "Damn it, I broke my collar bone!" The dog walked away perfectly fine and thanks to some excellent citizens of Waterford, 911 was reached. Molly sat with me while we waited for the ambulance. I started crying not because of the pain, but mostly because of the fact that all I could think of was that I wouldn't be able to finish my hours that week, or for the next few weeks as it turned out. After a wonderful ride in the ambulance and a grreeeeat dose of some pain meds, I got myself x-rayed (is that even a verb??) and it turns out my shoulder had separated. Meaning, the ligament between my scapula and clavicle is torn, but it's only a level two separation. So what does this mean!? Where do I go from here?! Well, obviously I don't go on my whitewater kayaking trip for orientation or whitewater rafting for my birthday or do my triathlon next week. But it does mean I will be spending plenty of quality time on the stationary bike and in the pool doing some pool running. And doing plenty or core. I've made it my goal to not lose any core strength during these next 4-6 weeks that I'm going to be spending in the sling. But life marches on, I'm just so thankful it wasn't a car and that I fell the way I did. Sadie will be joining me for a pool running sesh eventually and hopefully Trent will be coming down to go through a LOTR marathon and watch some fireworks. Since I'm missing my favorite run of the summer, the Blueberry Festival 10k, I'll just have to make sure I make the most of the fireworks.

Thank you so much to the Siegel family for all the support in the hospital and hosting my car for this week. I can't tell you how much it meant to have Molly in the ambulance with me and in the hospital. Thank you so much :)

So for all those able bodies out there, stay safe and keep training. I'll be busting it out on the bike and in the pool. Good luck! Hopefully I'll be back in action by October fighting fit and ready to race and train.
Cheers!