A Tumbling Pace

10 days ago I was at the Aspen Lodge Cyclocross trying out the course the evening before the race.  The course meandered through the Lodge grounds and was pretty gnarly.  You can see great pictures of the course here.   While riding and learning this fun  course on my singlespeed 29er, I was finishing the 5th and final lap as it was getting a bit dark.  One especially tough part for me on the single-speed was a really steep and short runup that I had only cleaned once and I wanted to try it one more time.  I got some speed going but then noticed that 2 other bikers were walking it.  I tried to go around them to the left but couldn’t make it and started rolling backwards.  I fell backwards off my bike and landed THUD!!!! with all my weight on my right arm on a rock.  I got up, felt dizzy like I was going to faint and then sat down dazed for about 1 minute.  I got up with thoughts of trying it again until I could do it.  As soon as I got on my bike I realized that my right arm was shot, I couldn’t even put weight on my handlebars through it.  So I rode back with one arm and went aside too embarrassed to tell Jacob my brother or Renee that I had crashed while trying out the course.  But the pain got so bad that I had to get some Ibuprofren and tell them.  Jacob went and got an EMT who was around and he took a look and said nothing was broken.

I was hoping to ride the next day but the pain was too severe the next morning so I swallowed the bitter pill and took my name off the race list.  I couldn’t drive back to Boulder with my stick-shift Honda so Jacob drove back.  For the next 3 days the pain was really bad but I ignored it thinking it would get better soon.  After 3 days the pain was better but then I just had flatline pain for 7 days straight with no improvement.  My friend Alec said it sounded like a radial head fracture so today I went in for a XRay at the Boulder Center for Sport’s Medicine.  I do have a fracture but it’s not a quite a radial head fracture.  As this picture shows, it’s a small fracture right below the radial head.

Diagnosis looks good.  After 10 days there is no displacement of the fracture and the fracture is far enough away from the radial head to have avoided any fragmentation.  I should be ok in 6-8 weeks but the doctor said the big danger is a loss of a range of motion so PT will be necessary as well.

I am probably out for the rest of the cyclocross season.  I have already been running which I will re-focus on.  I have a race next week which I am not ready for but I am still excited to compete again.  I hope to do more back country skiing this winter and lots of snowshoeing.  The biggest impact on my fitness will be the loss of ATC workouts which I won’t be able to do for a while.   Cycling I am painfully MISSING already but I will be back soon enough.