Recap of some training and some not training

S - 16000 yds
B - 200.4 mi
R - 4 mi

Time - 14.45 hrs

My blister began healing rapidly on Monday morning so that was awesome.  All of a sudden the bad stuff began dissappearing and the result was about 4 different layers of new skin.  So gross, but so spectacular!!

I also had some fantastic swim workouts; somehow I was swimming my little arms off in the pool.  Whatever magic juice I was on, I'll take it.  Since NOLA I'd been feeling a little stale so this was a nice rebound.

Biking was also good this week; got in a lot of miles despite not finishing my ride on Sunday and really nailed those workouts as well.

I didn't run until Sunday as I wanted to make sure my foot was 100% good to go and unfortunately didn't get the chance to run on Sunday afternoon like I had planned even though my legs felt good most of the week.

Now on to Sunday's recap: (warning, this is long as it's thoroughly cathartic)

Drove up to Davidson to ride with Carrie and Fletch on a fun ride that included 5x10mins threshold intervals in the middle of a 4 hour ride.  They were kind enough to let me sit on the front while I was pumping out threshold watts so at the beginning of the 3rd I was trucking along merrily at 280ish watts and started making a left turn onto Hart Rd off Cool Springs Rd, unaware that 2 days before they had begun the re-paving process so I was turning onto a road that was tarred and graveled and therefore extremely sketchy.  As soon as I hit the gravel - while turning left - at 30mph my wheels slid out from under me and I went down and my left fist basically took the full brunt of the impact.  I was very aware of what was happening as my head was up and eyes were open as I slid along the road.  If it doesn't sound pleasant, believe me it wasn't.

As I sat up I assessed what was going on; despite being in a mild state of shock (ok maybe it was moderate...) I could tell that my hand was in some deep shizzle.  I picked up my left hand and it was already covered in blood and upon flexing my fingers I also saw flashes of white and I assumed that was my knuckles.  I quickly put my head down and raised my hand up as Carrie and Andrew got on the phone and called 911.  I knew that there was a strong risk of passing out as I was both nauseous from seeing the injuries and the extremely high levels of pain.  A couple of guys in a truck pulled over and got out some paper towels and cold bottled water which was awesome.  It sort of sucks because it seems like the people that help you out are often only seen in emergency situations and then never seen again...  Carrie and Fletch were being super supportive and keeping me "alert"  as we waited for EMT's and the ambulance.  The first respondents arrived after 8-10 minutes and they applied some minimal bandaging since they knew the EMS people would take them off immediately.

The ambulance arrived and they quickly put me in there for the trip to a Salisbury hospital.  I didn't know it at the time but Carrie had hopped in the passenger seat and Fletch stayed behind with the bikes to wait for Shannon to come pick him up.  The EMT re-did the bandages and started an IV.  I was extremely cold and my pain level was steadily increasing.  The ambulance took about 20-25 minutes to get to the hospital and once there the doctor took a look and basically said she thought I'd have to go down to CLT to see a hand specialist and get surgery. She gave some sweet pain meds and Carrie had made it into the room at this so I'm hoping I didn't say anything too embarrassing...  After about 2 hours of back and forth doctors giving me shots, taking x-rays, etc Fletch made it up there and after a little more waiting we headed down to Charlotte.  I'd had another dose of pain medicine so I was a tiny bit loopy...

At the CMC Main we sat around in the waiting room for at least 1.5 hours before being brought into a non waiting room that still wasn't my final destination.  At this point Andrew had left to go back home (7:00ish?) so it was just me and Carrie fending for ourselves.  I'm not sure why I was in this particular room but before too long we were sent to the Diagnostic waiting room.  Carrie and I were both fading fast, as neither of us had eaten anything all day (literally: I had a bowl of cereal at 8am and a honey stinger waffle about 1hr into the ride and nothing else as the hospital wouldn't let me eat or drink since I might have to go to surgery) and while I had the mild pain to focus my energy Carrie had nothing but my boring dialogue... At around 9-9:30 Scott arrived and Carrie departed after a much longer day with me than originally planned...

We sat around a little while longer before finally being called into "the" room.  Various doctors/nurses came in and out and before too long I literally fell asleep while Scott was out getting some food (it was maybe 11:30 at this point).  I was awoken by a resident who said she'd be fixing me up at this late hour.  After cleaning and examining she said it didn't appear as bad as the previous hospital had made it sound (I quote: "they made it sound like you had de-gloved the back of your hand") and then proceeded to thoroughly clean my wounds.  It must be noted that Scott was watching this entire process while pacing back and forth and making painful sounding noises and providing commentary such as: "Dude she's got tweezers halfway up in your hand!!"  Fast forward to the end and I had some stitches, some prescriptions, and some instructions and at 1:30am Scott and I headed out of the hospital and home.

I can't thank Andrew, Carrie and Scott enough; if it weren't for them this day would have been far worse and much lonelier.  I am so glad they were there for me when I needed them the most!

Now I'll be taking some time off as I'm very sore and tired.  At least 2 weeks off from swimming, I haven't ridden (trainer) or run (treadmill) yet but probably will before the weekend.  I'll have to do some physical therapy to teach my tendons how to work properly again and hopefully will regain full motor control over my hands and 100% full function.  Time will tell!!