Yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. I crashed descending the TT course at Joe Martin and separated my shoulder pretty good. It was shitty luck.

It is funny, I was sitting at the car 30 minutes after I fell, getting patched up by a park ranger, and thought about how strange your mind deals with things such as stress and pain. One minute, I wasn’t really looking forward to riding, yet alone racing, up the 2.5 mile climb and the next minute, when I can’t race, I am thinking how nice it would be to race up the 2.5 mile climb. I have no idea why that is.

The day didn’t start out so bad. We got to the course a couple hours early. There was a break in the schedule before the PRO women went, so I got dressed quickly and headed up the hill. The course was slower than some of the previous years I’ve done it, with it being headwind towards the top. I rode the TT, with no warmup, but a little faster than training pace in 10:13, according my Strava download. That gave me some confidence, knowing I was going to take a significant amount of time off that racing.

Anyway, I rode 10 miles out past the TT finish and turned around. When I got to the TT course, it is all downhill to the car. The women were racing, but the course is open to descend. I just kept going downhill. It is pretty fast, somewhere in the upper 40’s without totally railing the descent. About 2/3 the way down, I was tucked, with my hands by the stem and I started into a left hand corner. I was going pretty fast.

I knew something wasn’t right immediately. My mind registered that I was at the wrong angle. I realized I was falling, but didn’t have a clue why. Somehow, I got my left foot out of the pedal and was tripoding for a bit. I was pretty proud of myself for what seemed like a few seconds, but probably was more like a fraction of a second. Then, I was tumbling down the road and ended up in the outside ditch.

I had just passed a woman that had finished the TT and she stopped and asked me if I was okay. I was pretty dazed. I told her I was fine, but didn’t really know. I’d hit my head pretty good, but remember about everything. Soon, a truck comes down the road and some guy gets out and said he was up around the corner and heard the crash. I think he was wearing an uniform, but I’m not sure about that. He asked me what happened and I reply that a squirrel ran out in front of me and I swerved and fell. I have no idea where that came from.

He says that he should give me a ride down the hill and I tell him I’m okay. But, at that point, I knew that wasn’t true. My left shoulder was handing about an inch low and was started to throb.

I was checking my wheels to make sure I could get down and my front tire was virtually flat. It had about 10 psi in it. So that explained it. It made me feel better, but not much. If I would have been riding my race wheels with tubulars, I bet I wouldn’t have fell. You can corner pretty well on a flat sewup, but not at all on a clincher. Anyway, what are the chances that would happen at the fastest section of the ride when I don’t have my hands in good postion? I’ve never flatted before in a corner on a descent. Guess it is about time.

Anyway, I got back to the van and told Bill. He wanted me to head off to the hospital, but I told him I was in no rush. They weren’t going to do anything anyway.

So, after the race finished, I went to the hospital. It was a slow and frustrating process as always. I’d give the hospital staff a rating of 3.5 on a 1 to 10 scale for competency and efficiency. I really didn’t ever know what person the doctor was. He never introduced himself and never got with in 5 feet of me. I told him a few times that my shoulder hurt and that my neck was tweeked, but when it was all said and done, they never even addressed my neck. And never cleaned anything. It was pretty much, put in a IV, inject a pain killer, take an x-ray and out.

I have a cat 4 separation of my left shoulder. I haven’t had time to read up on it much, but the guy (doctor) said it was separated 2.5 centimeters and won’t heal itself and needs surgery. I don’t know about that.

I spent an hour in the tub trying to scrub my wounds. That wasn’t a fun experience. I’m usually pretty against other people dealing with road rash, but in this instance, I would have appreciated them just doing it at the hospital. I think that maybe the staff there thought I didn’t have insurance or something, even though I told them at check-in I did. I’m not sure why it was such bad care because the place was pretty empty.

Anyway, that private jet flight from Dallas to La Jolla this afternoon is looking pretty good right now. Too bad I don’t have the energy to do the 300 mile drive to get down there. I think I’m going to just hang here for the weekend. I don’t have much else to do right now. I did get an prescription for Perocet. I wouldn’t have slept a minute last night without that.

I’m usually don’t stress much about these things. It is all part of the sport. But I would have rather just broken my collarbone if I had a choice. These shoulder things are a drag. Plus, for some reason, this one is incredible painful. Okay, I think I’ll go back to bed and try to add to the 3 hours of sleep I got last night.

I took this picture off the computer monitor. I'm not sure what I'm to look for that is important here, but it doesn't look so good.

A little racy. This is how I came back from the hospital. I wasn't too ripped up considering, other than my butt is not good also.

I grabbed this off my Strava download. I was going 47.1 mph when it drops to 0 mph. Pretty shitty luck.

I’m not sure it was the best thing to do hangin’ around the race this weekend. I feel more exhausted than I would have been if I would have raced I’m sure. I’ve separated shoulders before, but nothing to this extent or pain level. It wasn’t good all day. I’ve been eating Perocets by the handful, so most of my conversations that I had yesterday are a distant memory.

People were saying strange things to me all day. I’m not sure if it was because I hit my head or what, be some things just stood out as seeming extremely weird. One of the nurses at the hospital told me that the scriptures say “That life is just a vapor.” I didn’t try to figure out where that is from, but it kind of struck me. And then the waitress at waffle house said, “I’m your butter temptress.” I could have gone my whole life without someone saying that to me I think.

I got a call from the hospital yesterday asking about my care. I’m pretty sure someone I know called them to complain about their lack of service, especially addressing a head/neck injury. I can’t think of any other reason that they would call me to talk to me about their service. I told them what I thought. I hope they do something with it that will make it better for the next guy.

The races yesterday were crazy hard. I think mainly because of the wind and mild heat. It was blowing over 35 mph most of the time. The 1/2 race split into bits. The Pro race was more controlled and most likely easier. They came in as a big field. I forgot to mention that my friend, Amanda Miller, won the women’s TT on Thursday. That was a great result, again.

I got a million emails from people from all over the country about my shoulder. Seems like about everyone that reads this has separated their shoulder one time or another. The ones that interested me most were from doctors. I got, maybe, 5 or 6 from ortho guys that had separated theirs. It seems it is pretty split down the middle whether to surgically fix it or just wait it out and see. I have an appointment on Monday with the ortho doctor that does all the pitchers shoulders of the Kansas City Royals. I have to assume that guy know shoulders better than just about anyone, so I’m going to listen to him intently. Then I’m going to talk to Eric Heiden, the team ortho from BMC and listen to him intently. And then probably wait it out for awhile to see if it works at all. At least that is the plan now.

I was asked to announce during the criterium on Sunday during the PRO race. I’ll see what my Perocet consumption rate is tomorrow before I make that decision. I was planning to not take any today, but just a minute ago I realized that wasn’t going to fly, so I thought I might as well start earlier than later. I’m breaking them in half and taking them twice as often.

I’ve got friends racing all times of the day today. Catherine had to get up and do the TT this morning early and is racing a road race now. My team isn’t starting the road race until 3:30. It’s all over the place. Okay, once again, I think I’ll take a nap. Sleeping isn’t really working out that well just yet.

Wandering around has its upside too. I got my enjoyable annual meeting of Nancy Martin. This is her daughter and sister.

I haven't met up with Thomas Craven, a friend and ex-Wheatie/Schwinn team mate since he took aver the reins of the BMC Developement team.

Bill's last bottle for the top of Mt. Gaylor. Red Bull and Coke.

Sometimes I'm remiss on wearing my helmet, but can't complain about having it on in this instance.

We've been eating at Waffle House for breakfast. I thought this was so appropriate to find in the men's restroom there.