CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

OUCH!!!

This one is a little late, but I figured it would be nice to have a little more on my page than just the typical hey how ya doing sort of stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take a road trip for some biking. For some of you this may not seem like too big of a deal but for me, these trips are few and far between. Our local bike trail is closed due to some legalities and the only place left to ride within an hour sucks! So I load up the gear; bike, extra tires and tubes, a couple of jugs of gatorade, helmet, riding shoes, body armor and a hefty stack of energy bars and hit the road for Ft. Lauderdale leaving about 9:00 in the AM. I'm planning on meeting some friends down there so luckily I won't be riding alone.
Turns out, Markham park has just instituted a new rule that you have to sit through a really dull video (about 5 minutes long) and then sign a release of liability and get an ID card to ride the trails there now. So after 2 hours on the road, I spend another 20 minutes in the park office an fulfill my obligations. Time to hit the trails! After all, this is what I came here for.....right?

I hook up with Mike and Cindy (who just finished the video) and we head to the trail-head and gear up. As intelligent and health concious individuals we do a quick warm up lap on a fairly windy but completely flat trail to get our cardio up and running and then head for the big stuff. Our first "real" trail is called washing machine and gets it's name because if you run it fast it's like getting thrown around in a washing machine....lots o fun! We get about half way through the trail (about 2 miles) and I'm riding through a transition area where there is literally nothing going on, pretty harmless flat terrain, and I stand up to pedal and WHAM! my back goes out. I don't mean like I had a little pinch, I mean it went OUT! I started screaming like a little girl who just lost her barbie doll and wrapped my body around my handle bars. Mike and Cindy come racing up thinking I just racked my man parts on my bike. After much cussing and screaming they get me off the bike and on the ground....bad idea..... I ended up spending about an hour and a half laying in the dirt beside the trail trying to figure out how in the hell to get out of there. Mike ran off to get some help while Cindy held an ice pack on my back and fielded questions from everyone that had to stop and see if there was any blood. Usually when someone is lying in the dirt at Markham they are bleeding profusely and of course everyone wants to stop and see the carnage. "what happened""he threw out his back""oh....nothing to see here guys lets go" Jerks! Actually a few stopped and asked if they could help but there wasn't much to do. Eventually Mike get's back with help and they inform me that I might want to get carried out on a spine board...I don't like this idea but concede that it may be the only way until they inform me that EMS is the only people that can make that happen. ARGH! not on this trip they aint. After much pushing, pulling and screaming (rumor has it folks though Ned Beaty was in the woods) they manage to get me back on my bike and roll me the mile or so back to the trail head. After a quick lunch consisting of part of a sub and half a bottle of advil they get me in the car and send me packing.

I have to give a quick shout out to my sister who talked to me on the phone the whole way home, without her help I'm not sure I would have made it. After getting home I had to crawl into the house all the while hoping nobody would see me, and collapsed on the floor. Luckily the older 2 were with the grandparents, and Danielle and Nati were out shopping I really didn't want to be seen like this.

Bottom line is that I took about a week with a few Chrio visits to get up and going again and now I'm trying to figure out when I can get back to Markham to finish where I left off.....Funny thing is that despite being in excrutiating pain, I was and still am more upset about wasting a whole day than about the back thing.

Let's hope the next trip turns out better.

0 comments: