Feels worse than it looks

I had my race simulation on Tuesday night.  I did a race simulation before with my coach back in June when I first started working with her.  At the time I did the try a tri distance (300m, 9km, 1.5km) and had a great time putting it all together but more importantly finishing.  This week I was going to do the sprint distance simulation (600m, 19km, 4km) in prep for my race on Sept 5.  (note to self, you might want to register for the race).   As the sim approached I was getting more and more nervous, I knew I could pull off all the distances individually but all together, this was going to be interesting.  By the time 'race day' arrived I was pretty sick at my stomach and could barely eat and couldn't keep a single thought in my head.

The days are definitely getting shorter and I kept thinking that I should probably cut the swim short so that I could finish everything before the cutoff time of 8:00pm.  Coach didn't want anyone on the roads after 8 because the drivers on Safari road are NUTS.  I talked to one of the other girls about it and decided it would be better to do the entire swim and cut the run if I had to.

The swim was better than I thought and I wasn't the last one out of the water.  My endurance is getting much better, there was alot more front crawl and alot less breast stroke.  The bike started out fantastic, I was tired after the swim but feeling pretty good as I pedaled.  The bike route was a circle, I love those, turn right, turn right, turn right, no thought required, you can just enjoy the scenery and the wind.  Nancy had mentioned that on the final stretch along Safari Road there are three hills called "the three sisters", also known as the three bitches and said that seasoned cyclist probably rate these hills a 7 out of 10 difficultly.  I thought ok, I'm a badass (haha) but at worst I will try my best and walk if I have to.  Going along  Brock road and highway 5 things were going great.  My legs felt good and I was averaging between 28-30km per hour most of the time.  I even got up the nerve to take a drink of water while cycling which I have never done before.  Getting close to the turn at Safari road or I thought I must be close I looked ahead and saw a behemoth (sp?) of a hill, a mountain really and said out loud, "you have GOT to be fucking kidding me!!.  I wasn't even on Safari road yet!!  Another girl was ahead of me and we made it up to the top of the hill.  We stopped at the top to catch our breath and looked down, STRAIGHT DOWN at the descent, it was steep with a nice left 'jog' at the bottom.  She said "I'm not doing that" and all I could think was "how the F*(& am I going to do that!".  I said to her well I've got to try it and off I went.  Heavy heavy on the brakes about halfway down I felt a bit steadier and let it go.  I was flying at about 52km/hr, I didn't know it at the time I was just holding on for dear life.  There were more hills on the way to Safari road (really? really?  how many bitches are there?) and I was finally humbled and had to walk the last one.  On Safari road I made one hill, had to walk halfway up another, on another one I had to walk but about halfway up it seemed to flatten out and I thought I could make it up the last half.  I clipped in on my left side first and started to pedal to clip in my right side but couldn't get the clip secured and then I couldn't actually pedal so I lost any momentum I had and down I went.  I fell on my left side, knee to the pavement first, I fell into and onto the handlebars, smacked under my chin, the list goes on. I got up pretty quick because I was afraid a driver would come flying over the hill and not see me and walked up to the top.  I had my cell with me and contemplated calling Nancy to come and get me but I figured I must be close to the end and if it took too long she would come find me.  I got back to transition, put on my runners and a baseball hat and went for my run.  At the gate Nancy stopped me and said I couldn't run the road, it was too late and I'd have to run a lap of the lake. Surprisingly the run was great, really relaxed easy breathing.

I knew I was in some pain when I got home but it wasn't until I woke up in the middle of the night I realized how much pain it was.  My past knee injuries have been scrapes and surface, this was much less blood and hurt to touch anywhere around the knee plus my chest hurt pretty bad.  After being awake half the night and then pretty nauseous the next morning I called my chiro.  He's a great guy and I knew he'd assess it and know what to do.  He said I have a strained sternum and was pretty impressed with the overall bruising on my arms, legs and knee.  He did some adjusting and told me to come back if I'm not feeling better.  Yesterday I felt better as the day wore on, ice is my friend.  Tonight MORE cycling.  My parents are going to be so happy when cycling season is over.

It feels worse than it looks