during yesterday's race i went down on my bike, and i went down hard. at the very bottom of the long, technical descent on the backside of the course, the road turns sharply to the right, then quickly to the left before flattening out and taking you back to transition to complete your lap. on the second lap i was screaming down this section, not realizing where i was on the course, and was trying to overtake a slower athlete on the outside. when i saw that the corner was coming at me and i knew i wasn't going to make it, i found a spot and focused on it, hopped the curb, rode up some stairs and went down on my left elbow, hip and shoulder and slid for several metres through the dirt, narrowly avoiding several trees. when i went down i was going 65.2km/h.
several spectators rushed over to help and gathered my scattered bits. i quickly stood up and grabbed my bike but i nearly fainted because i was so light headed and in shock. i thought my race was over and i thought my bike had been destroyed. i threw my helmet off and lay down in the grass for several minutes and closed my eyes. i thought i was done. i thought my race was over. i was thinking about how far i'd come to race and how much work i'd put in to get to that race, and i didn't want my race to end this way. paramedics arrived while i was lying down but my head began to clear and i realized i was ok. no broken bones. just some nasty scrapes and bruises. i tried getting to my feet, and when i was up i was no longer dizzy. i put my bottles back in their cages, popped the missing lens back into my sunglasses, threw my hemet back on, looked over my bike to make sure it was rideable, which it seemed to be, put my chain back on and thanked the spectators and paramedics for helping me out. i had a race to finish.
looking back on it i feel lucky to be alive. i was going so fast that if i hadn't of been able to make that split second decision to jump over the curb, i would have crashed into it and sent myself flying, tumbling rear wheel over front, landed directly on the cement stairs and would have undoubtedly hit one, if not several, of the trees that i somehow avoided. i walked away from this one with nothing more than some pretty serious gashes and bruises and dirty and bloody gear. my bike was mangled but made it through the rest of the race, but my last 3 laps were certainly slower than my first two. but i made it to the end, and finishing that race was all that i cared about after riding away from that crash.
