Everyone keeps asking me about what happened last Saturday that made me
look like this, so I'm writing and reflecting on it here for anyone who is curious.
I was competing in a Draft Legal Sprint World Championship Qualifying race on Saturday in Cleremont, Florida. Most triathlons are not draft legal, meaning cyclists have to make sure there is lots of space between each other on the bike portion. In this race, close riding is encouraged -- it helps cyclists go faster and makes the race more like a game of chess. This was my first draft legal race.
The race started well. I was one of the first people to finish the swim, and therefore one of the first on the bike course. I started riding my bike, and almost immediately a woman from a younger age group was behind me, drafting off of me. There were a few riders in front of us, so I asked her if she wanted to work together to catch them. She took a turn riding in front of me, but almost immediately started to slow down. I got dangerously close to her wheel, tried to hit the brakes, but they didn't stop me quickly enough (if you've been following my triathlon stories on this blog, you'll know that brake issues have been a persistent problem for me this season). I went down really hard. Fortunately she did not go over and kept riding.
For a few seconds I considered getting back on my bike, but the amount of blood running down my face convinced me otherwise. Watching the reactions of the riders behind me as they passed confirmed my decision to stop racing. In retrospect, it was totally crazy for me to think that I could have kept riding.
The medics found me walking my bike back to the race start, picked me up and cleaned me up a bit, and eventually I made my way to the ER thanks to a mom of another athlete at the race. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the ER getting shuttled back and forth for X-rays and CT scans, and by the end of the day had 10 stitches in my forehand and cast on my hand for a broken finger and tons of cuts, scrapes and bruises all over my body. I did not have a concussion. I was able to fly back to NYC that night.
I'm getting my stitches out today, and I'm having surgery on my finger tomorrow. Compared to what could have happened, I think I'm pretty lucky. I'll recover quickly. About 8 other triathletes ended up in the ER with me after the race, some were brought in on body boards, and some lost consciousness when they got into their accidents. All of it happened on the bike portion. There were only about 200 people in the race, so it was a pretty bloody event.
At the same time, the accident has definitely made me see the world from a slightly different perspective in the last few days. This is not my first time dealing with a major medical emergency (either for myself or for someone else), but it was a great reminder of a bunch of things:
- We are incredibly reliant on other people: I am an independent person and like being self sufficient, but also have a clear understanding that almost everything I've been able to do in my life is a direct result of other people helping me. After an accident, this idea becomes even more important. Obviously having medical professionals help me make sure my body heals well is important, but also having people to help me do things like take out the trash and go grocery shopping makes a world of difference in this kind of situation. I'm so, so grateful to everyone who has helped me and sent me well-wishes.
- Some people don't understand what "urgent"means: I had to reschedule a bunch of meetings this week to make time for doctors appointments and to give myself time to rest and recuperate. Almost everyone was really understanding of this. Some people were not. For example, I asked one person if I could reschedule a call for next week, and he insisted that I speak with him this week because it was 'urgent.' This surprised me, so I made room for him in my schedule only to discover that he was just seeking my advice on a business idea he had. This is not an urgent matter. Things like running payroll or an emergency with one of our students, volunteers or staff members are urgent and need my attention. I understand that working with a sense of urgency is important, but it's also important to have empathy and a sense of priorities -- when someone says they are having a family or medical emergency, believe them. The same idea applies when you see someone else in an urgent situation -- whatever you were planning to do is probably not as urgent as stopping and taking the time to help someone who needs it. Back in 2010 I got hit by a cyclist who was looking at his iPhone instead of what was in front of him while I was running on the West Side Highway. The cyclist stopped for about 30 seconds, gave me 20 bucks and biked away despite the fact that I was very clearly hurt. A person skateboarding nearby stopped what he was doing and made sure I was OK, called an ambulance for me and waited until the ambulance got there. Be the skateboarder, not the cyclist. Whatever you had plans to do are not as urgent as making sure someone is OK.
- Being super athletic does not always mean being super healthy: What I do puts my body at risk in so many ways. Not only do I greatly increase my chances of getting hurt by doing triathlons, but the amount of training I've done both for triathlons (now) and swimming (when I was younger) have caused other medical issues for me -- from overuse injuries to amenorrhea. There's a delicate balance between being healthy and being unhealthy and sometimes it's difficult to find the happy medium.
Again, I'm glad I'm OK. It's really not that bad, and I'm so grateful to everyone who has been helpful. I'm excited for next season.
