The devil went down to Georgia looking for a PR to steal

After a month of not knowing if I was coming or going working 12-17 hours a day, I was finally on my way to Georgia to race Ironman Augusta 70.3. Since my race in Chicago at the end of August, I hadn't been on my bike much more than a few times, had been in the pool twice and the longest run was 11 miles in a prison yard (.29 mile loops) a few weeks prior.

At first I wasn't going to race it, my left shoulder was still giving me some trouble and the lack of training had me apprehensive. But then I decided to just go make it a long training day and enjoy the scenery. After all, I wasn't going to get the $350 registration back and I had already pre-paid the hotel. It was difficult to find someone to take 3 days off work to drive with me so I hit the road solo. My best friend Andrea booked a ticket days before to come join me from Miami and my friend Stephanie came over from Atlanta. All three of us have been through some emotionally draining shit lately, so we booked some massage, pedicures and manicures and made it a girls weekend with a half Ironman on Sunday.

Getting to the expo got me so excited! There's an electricity in the air that just gets you jazzed up. I was actually excited for the race and ready to go all out. During my walk into the expo I met a girl doing her first 70.3 in my age group, I thought back to my first race, it's such a blur yet sometimes seems like yesterday, so I was excited for her. I randomly started talking to a guy next to me in the Athlete's meeting. I then noticed he had an IMAZ14 shirt on, so we started talking about the hell of the wind on the bike. We continued to talk and realized that he was in the group that came out to cheer me on at the finish in 2013. He introduced me to his wife as "this is the girl I told you about" and we took a picture.

I picked up Andrea and we met Stephanie and the three of us laughed all night long. It was good, I hadn't really laughed like that in a very long time. We enjoyed a cheap and good southern breakfast, I did a quick brick workout and we took SassyRoo to transition. We then went for our pedicures and manicures and then met friends from RAINstorm (they blame me for doing their first 70.3) for dinner. Super low key day, it was great to rest up and hang out.

Woke up and it was race day! Stephanie and Andrea got to experience the pre-race ritual which includes getting up very early! I had to get creative with putting on my race tats on the left arm since it was taped up. I got to transition in plenty of time, set my stuff up, caught the shuttle to swim start and the nerves started to kick in. I knew the swim was going to be fast with the current, but I wasn't sure how fast. I knew I could handle the bike after training in Brown County this year and the run was flat and there was a big crowd, so I knew I'd keep running. I ran into Jen who was up from Jacksonville and found Stephanie and Andrea. Next thing I knew I was in line with my age group and ran into my friend Laura from Arizona.

 The swim was fast. It was hot in a long sleeve wetsuit, but my longjohn gives me panic attacks. I was definitely overheated a bit, but it was nice to see the bouys going by so quickly. Out of the water in 37, I was super happy about that. It's a long run to transition, I was having a hard time catching my breath, so I walked most of it.

Eight minutes later I was out on the bike, I saw Andrea and Stephanie again and also saw Richard, Heidi's friend and dad. I was making sure to not go too fast out on the bike, I wanted to have a nice negative split. I looked down at one point and was going 19 and felt like I was barely pushing it. I felt a tap on the shoulder and it was my friend Dave whizzing by. At mile 6 I swore my tire was flat so I got off to check, it was fine, not sure what was making noise, but it took me a few minutes of waiting to find a good spot to merge back into bike traffic.

As I'm making my way up a small climb, I move to the right since I'm a slow climber, people are passing 3 and 4 wide at this point, it's pretty busy and congested. A women looks at my leg as she's passing and says "you're doing this solo? You're my hero." I think whatever, I get that a lot, there's a fat girl doing it all by herself, she's nuts. As I was lifting my head to say thank you that movement causes my front tire to ever so slightly move to the right, when I look back down, it takes my front tire completely off the road and the lip of the pavement is too much for me to safely return to the road. My back tire never leaves the road, my my front tire causes me to flip over the handle bars and I land on my left shoulder and head, then my left hip hits the road. The impact causes my clips to come loose from the pedals and my bike lands to the side of me. For a split second I think I'll get up and ride the rest of the course. But feeling that I don't have much road rash, I knew that something in my shoulder was broken, so I hit the end button on my Garmin. That pained me, I was on my way to a killer PR. When I crashed at about mile 26.7 I was averaging 17.5 That is huge for me. I knew I had a 3 or 3:15 half marathon in me. I was looking at a 7:20 finish, an HOUR PR. This Sun Devil was a sad panda.

There's a guy that turns around to see the crash and he stops. I ask him to not ruin his time helping me and he said he's not going to leave me. He moves SassyRoo to the side of the road and he helps me sit up. I ask him to go and just tell someone that I'm down here. I sat on the side of the road with my back to the traffic and some people are asking if I'm okay. The response the same "please let someone know I'm down here" and then a woman named Carla stops. I ask her not to ruin her time, she says she's going slow today and it's fine. She let me call Brian from my cell phone so he can tell Andrea that I crashed and to meet me in medical. She helps me to my feet and props me up against the guard rail. From there I'm cheering people on as they go by. Until I feel like I'm going to pass out from the pain, then I stop. Luckily not long after that an Ironman employee Graham comes with a Sheriff. They put my bike and stuff in the truck and the Sheriff and I wait for an ambulance. They say it's been a busy day for crashes and there's only one ambulance left on the course. They come and I swear it's two EMT that got their degree from the TV order Sally Struther's school for EMTing. This guy wraps an ace bandage around my neck, not sure what that was supposed to do, I think he was trying to make a sling. They tell me that they'll have to transfer me to another ambulance so they can get back on the course.

The other ambulance comes and transfers me. I ask if I'm going to get charged for two rides, seems like a legit question. The guy in the back with me takes my vitals including my blood sugar. I laugh, that's probably sky high since that's all the nutrition for the day is, sugar. He is very nice and hugs me when we go over bumps to minimize the pain. He's a nice guy, he can do it anytime...ha. We stop and I ask what's going on. His partner says there's a guy who just got pulled over by a cop and he pulled a guy on her. What?! My first ambulance ride and gun shootout, are fucking kidding me?! They give me the play by play since I can't see it. The cop pulls her gun, wrestles the guy to the ground and arrests him. We're back on our way, this went down steps from the bike course, it could have been another Puerto Rico!

Finally TWO hours after my crash, I made it to the hospital, found Andrea and Stephanie shortly and was able to get into some dry clothes. I was able to get my Back on My Feet tank off with help, the sports bra they had to cut off. They took xrays and confirmed it was busted pretty bad, they gave me some pain killers and and I was discharged by 3:30PM. Andrea was nice enough to get my gear from the race site for me after Dani from Ironman got it all together.

Andrea drove me back to Atlanta and Brian flew down so he could drive me home. Sass offered to come down on her day off to drive me back and was nice enough to take Brian to the airport. Allison also offered to drive back with me, as did Stephanie. My mom of course was ready to fly plane herself to get down to her baby as soon as possible! I'm so proud of my mom, she stayed calm. She always said she would never forgive herself if something happened to me on that bike.

End to the girls weekend

The drive back was full of lots of "oh" and "ouch" whimpers as we hit bumps and turns and rumble strips (what the fuck Brian!? love you!) and we made it home.

It would be easy to have a pity party. To cry and be sad. But I am embracing the silver linings:

I am so lucky to have so many wonderful friends and family that would do anything to help me! I am overwhelmed with the offers to bring food, come by and entertain me, clean, go to the store, wash my hair, mow my lawn, feed my cats, etc. I'm getting better at asking for help and allowing people to help me. I always get bummed out when someone won't let me help them, so I'm going to let people help me. As Mr. Rogers says, there are people who want to help, just look around. 

I'm also so lucky that I got a new helmet on a whim. I'll save more about my helmet for my next post about my surgery. I'm lucky that this happened going up hill and not down, I would very likely be sausage meat right now, some of the hills I was going faster than 40mph down. I am lucky there were people there to help me. I'm lucky that I didn't take anyone else out in the crash. I'm lucky I didn't do more damage to me or SassyRoo. I'm just lucky and full of gratitude.

Looking back at old posts, my left shoulder has been giving me shit since 2012. I can get it properly fixed and come back like the bionic woman. I suck at training and eating well, so I can slow the fuck down already and work on losing weight. Spend a season getting lean and building muscle. I can figure out what is really important to me and do things of quality and not quantity. I can thank God for the miracles and work on the relationships that matter.

I can use this  to set an example to the members of Back on My Feet that it's how you react to the curve balls, how you make the best of a bad situation that make you resilient. It's how you get up after you fall that matters in life. I'm going to come back stronger, smarter and more grateful than ever!

Congratulations to all my kick-ass friends who had great races in Augusta & Chattanooga that day!

Thank you to everyone for your love, support, comments, cards, calls, texts, meals and visits.