It's not if, it's when

People who ride bikes have a saying, "it's not a matter of if you are going to crash, it's a matter of when." In other words, everyone crashes. Everyone. At some point or another you will crash. Honestly I have been riding bikes on and off for years. At one point, when I was trying to get into shape, I rode everyday in California. It was my exercise of choice. I was without a bike for a long time, but I have now had a bike for at least 12 years. And I ride on and off. I actually love riding my bike, it really is my favorite form of exercise. I have these massive thighs that can carry me long, long ways on the bike. Not so good for running, but awesome for biking. One of the things I've done when serious about losing weight is ride my bike to Weight Watchers. It does a number of things. First, I get my exercise in for the day and I get my weigh-in. Perfect. Second, lots of times I will end up just cruising around since I enjoy biking so much and therefore I get in more exercise than I planned. Also, Saturday mornings are kind of me time. I don't usually schedule anything except WW so I am free to workout, bike ride, run, walk, hike, whatever I want.

So yesterday morning started off like any other. I rode my bike to WW and was feeling pretty good. After the meeting I was debating with myself to head straight home or cruise the main drag looking for garage sales. We are looking for some chairs for the living room and Saturday is prime garage sale time. I was going back and forth all the way up to the point where I had to make a decision. I would either go straight and go home, or turn left and cruise. At the last minute I decide to go left. I get into the left turn lane. There are 3 cars in the lane already and the light is red. I stop behind the 3 cars because I don't want to be right next to them when they take off and also I have a little room to build up some speed to get through the intersection. The light turns green. I start pedaling. I stand up on the pedals to try and get a little ommph behind it. I start to make the left turn when something goes horribly wrong. I don't know exactly what happened but I could feel something go wrong and I start to head over the handle bars. Yikes. I knew I was going to fall and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was going down. I fell on my right side and I actually felt my head bounce off the pavement. As soon as I was down I knew I had to get out of there since I was right in the middle of the road. The car that was behind me slowed down but then kept going around me. I knew I had to move. So I popped up like one of those punching bags that always rights itself, grabbed my bike and headed to the median to regroup. As I'm hobbling over I hear some guy ask "Are you okay?" Now, something I should explain here. When I hurt myself the one thing that pisses me off most is that question "Are you okay?" Really. Would I be hobbling like this if I was alright? Would the blood that's running down my arm be any indication that things might not be okay? Really!!! My initial reaction is usually "Leave me the f*ck alone!!!" I refrained from that though and told the man, "I think so." I then continued to hobble to the median, throw my bike on the grass and sit on the curb. Now, I have not looked at the guys who asked if I was okay. I had no idea who they were, but I could hear them backing up their truck and moving into the left turn lane. I was just blocks from where Hubby was working and I was just planning on calling him to come get me. With these guys getting out of the truck I thought "great, some stinking good Samaritans." As the truck door opened and I turned to tell them I'd be fine, I saw the fire dept logo on the door. Oh, these were firemen. Oh, that's okay.

They insisted on calling for help and we ended up with firemen, police, and ambulance there. It was all very exciting. They cleaned my scraps and took my blood pressure and pulse. They kept asking me things like if I knew my name and what day it was. They were all extremely nice. I felt rather embarrassed by the whole thing, but everyone who showed up was awesome. At one point the cop asked if there was a car involved and the first fireman said no, she fell by herself. At that point I started laughing and everyone else did too. It was a tension relieving moment and one of the firemen said, "at least you can still laugh at yourself." They wanted to take me to the hospital in the ambulance and I really did not think that was necessary. I ended up going home with Hubby and telling them I would go to the doctor. I even made an appointment when I got home. But I ended up canceling it because once I laid down and relaxed I started to feel better.

So the injury report? Well, I banged my head pretty good and destroyed my helmet. My right forearm is scraped all to hell. My right knee is scraped and my left shin banged my pedal and has a nice knot. Apparently I took the majority of the fall on my right hip/butt cheek. It was the most sore thing yesterday. Today it's better but there is a mark where I scraped I think, and I'm sure there will be a nice bruise there. It's not coming up yet but I'm sure it will. I slept pretty good considering, but today I feel like I've been beat up. My back is sore, my neck is sore, my upper arms are sore, my shoulders hurt. I feel like I worked out for hours and hours. So it looks like I'll be taking it easy today. My agenda includes grading papers, walking the dogs and doing laundry and that's about all. Now, off to shower and take some ibuprofen.