Optimus has a fall

My weekend training was fairly eventful. I decided to flip the routine around, and do the run on Saturday, and the brick on Sunday. The 5-mile run was very enjoyable, and I wasn't at all tired. During the run, I focused on form a lot, keeping my arms at right-angles and relaxing into the run.

The brick was tough. We didn't get off to a good start, really. We had a late night on Saturday, so we didn't get up until 10am or so. Then the bike rack had issues with carrying both Optimus and our friend's Huffy. Finally, we put Optimus in the back seat, and carried the Huffy on the rack. The sun was blazing by the time we got to the Veloway. One of our friends (who's done a 360-mile bike ride) joined us. Both he and Arv (on the Huffy) were way ahead of me, and sailed through the Hill. After pushing through 5 loops on the Veloway (only making the Hill 1/3 of the time), I skidded on a sharp turn and crashed. I had rode too close to the edge of the lane and skidded on a pool of mud.

Fortunately, I had bike gloves on, so I didn't scrape off the skin from my hands. My left knee took a bit of a beating. Poor Optimus had one of his handlebars bent by the impact. The gears & brakes were fine, so I continued on my loop. The guys were way ahead and hadn't realized I had fallen. I was determined to finish 20 miles, so I pushed ahead on the 6th loop (with a concerned Arvind watching my back this time), and even made it up the hill! I completed the 20miles and a 10min run with a bleeding knee. Quite melodramatic.

Gau & Santhosh told me to wear my wound proudly as a badge of honour. Whatever. In a way though, I'm glad I fell, because it was a nagging fear. Now that it's done, I can ride more fearlessly, knowing I can survive a crash. :) I guess Optimus has now been broken in.