My most recent biking adventure was landing face-first on the pavement. Damage to my face was two internally bruised lips and assorted cuts and scratches on my nose, face, and outer lips. I have one swollen finger (not sure if I'll be able to ride by Sunday or not) and there was some minimal damage to the bike. A braver person might not have replaced the front wheel, but, after some discussion with the bike shop I decided that it was safer to do so.
Overall I got off really easy because I was going very slowly when it happened. I was riding on a sidewalk as a I transitioned from one part of the neighborhood to the other and my wheel got stuck in a groove between sections of the sidewalk. The bike came to a complete stop and I didn't.
The big lesson is that riding a road bike takes complete concentration. My mind was somewhere else. I am having an old hybrid bicycle reconditioned and something like that can be ridden with a lot less focus because the tire are more forgiving.
Prior to this incident on Wednesday biking had been going well. Sunday I did my longest ride in recent history: 33 miles. If my finger is working well enough to hold onto the handle bar, shift, and brake, I'll go out this Sunday for another longish ride.
Running continues. I'm now working more on speed and not so much on endurance, figuring that the biking should be giving me some conditioning. I think it would be reasonable to do a half-mile time trial sometime in the next month or so. But first I've got to run a quarter at some reasonable pace.
3 comments:
Interesting! Now landing on your face on the pavement is not something that often happens while running (although Mark Peters fell in a warmup before a cross country meet and was knocked out cold). Biking sure seems more exciting than running, although I don't know if I would really enjoy that kind of excitement. Anyway, glad to hear you're alright, and looking forward to the half mile time trial. I think all the biking should really count for endurance. After all, Mark Peters counted biking and cross training one summer to get his 1,000 mile club award from Bruce Truce. This was quite controversial, and discussed for some years afterwards. I'm not sure why Mark Peters stories pop into my mind so often.
Mark
Obviously biking is requiring a level of dexterity that may be diminishing at our age. I advise caution in all future two wheeled endeavors. I'm very encouraged to see this is not stopping you in pursuit of your running goals. A time trial would be a great indicator of your training progress. At least you did not injure your legs. Since we're obviously crazy anyway, I see no reason why a head injury should be an impediment at all!
Carry on!
Dave
Hmmmmm. Faceplants are not good. We bikers like to say, keep the rubber side down.
Speedo
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