You may (or may not) have noticed that there was no cooking post from last weekend... Well, we had a few events going on, and it just seemed more important to take it easy, rather than push ourselves to also try and do some experimenting in the kitchen.
Saturday, May 2nd, the hubs went out to race one of the sketchier routes of the season, the Koppenberg Criterium. It is a six lap race, where the pinnacle is a nasty uphill climb on a dirt road. Thanks to some non-stop rain the week before, the road was no longer dirt, but mud. The race organizers had put down some hay to sop up the wet mud, and hopefully make the route more bearable for the racers, but it sounds like it was still a mess... Lap 2 of the race, two racers bumped each other right in front of him, and went down. With nowhere else to go, he went down right on top of them. Front crank gears shoved themselves into his front right shin, and he has some nasty puncture wounds. He needed a couple of stitches in the ER that day... Among the gashes were some more bumps, bruises, and patches of road rash that have been taking their time to heal. Maybe saddest of all, the bike is officially retired. A crack in the carbon fiber frame means that we are on the hunt for a new bike and new parts ASAP. Stitches come out on Wednesday, and maybe we'll see him try on some new running shoes with a different kind of racing in his future??
Sunday, May 3rd, was my first race of the season. Needless to say, I was probably not very helpful to my poor husband as he lay in the ER for the second time in a year. My mind was on my race, and how often I needed to eat, and that I should be resting my legs as much as possible. Hopefully I wasn't too awful about it... When I woke up at 4:45 in the morning on Sunday to get in a proper breakfast before the event, the hubs was in all kinds of pain. I couldn't possibly make him come with me, so I got in the car with all of my food and race gear, and sang Journey at the top of my lungs the whole way to the race. I hadn't been training well. My longest run had been 10 miles, 3 weeks before the race, and it wasn't a pretty 10 miles... But I started slow and made it a full 12.5 miles before my knees started screaming and my will-power was defeated. A nasty little hill climb at the 12.5 mile marker broke me, and I walked the next quarter mile. I finished the 13.1 mile race running across the line, but I hadn't met my goals. I wanted to complete the race fully running, and I missed my goal time by 11 minutes.
We have spent the last week nursing injuries. Open wounds, bruises, busted knees and torn muscles. I am happy that all of it is behind us, and it gives us some new goals to look forward to now. I'm only hoping that the disappointments spark a little fire that gets this season back on track!
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