Tour de Cure Recap

A little over a week ago was the St. Louis Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes association. I signed up on my gym's team, hence the yellow and black jersey in the photo above. All of the participants who  had diabetes, received a "red rider" jersey. I've had diabetes since I was a kid, so I got a red jersey. I decided to leave my team jersey on for the ride though.

I wore this pin on my jersey. The photo on the left is my Dad's younger brother, who just just recently lost his battle with diabetes.  The photo on the right is my Mom's sister. She passed away 14 years ago, and she battled with diabetes for years. Neither of them saw their 55th birthdays, and they are both sorely missed by many people. Two lives cut short, partially due to diabetes. 

The ride started a bit later than originally announced, and I never heard why there was a delay.

I met a couple of other people to ride with, and this is the three of us at one of the rest stops. 

This is the  50 mile route I was riding. See that pink bar at the bottom of the photo? That shows the elevation changes. This was a hilly course, but I'd been training on some hills.  Somewhere between 28 and 30 miles, I crashed. See that last tall pink peak? I was near the summit.  I'm frustrated that I had made it through almost all of the challenging part of the route when I crashed. If I could have hung in for a couple more miles, I would have been back on mostly flat terrain. I still don't remember what happened. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept well for 2 days. It was kinda hot, and I was taking the descents too fast. A deputy found me on the downside of a hill with my bike on top of me. I have no memory of even speaking to him. He stayed with me until first aid arrived.

My helmet and gloves did their jobs. The foam on the interior of my helmet was cracked. The straps were bloody. I started to try to wash the blood out of my gloves, until I saw that they were ripped. I threw it all away. The day after the crash, I checked my bike computer to see what the maximum speed recorded was - thinking that would be what I was doing when I crashed. It was just over 30 mph. Too fast. 

I had to get checked out at the ER. X-rays and CT were all clean, thankfully. Just a lot of road rash. I saw my chiropractor two days after the crash and my internist the day after that. The appointment with the chiropractor was so helpful. He adjusted my back, neck and ribs. It was the first adjustment I had ever had there that was painful, but I felt much better afterwards. My ribs are still sore a bit, but they have healed to the point where I can breathe deeply enough to exercise.

My new helmet and gloves arrived last week, and I have already put them to use.  Over the weekend, I got an email from my team captain. He told me that there would be a small gift for me at the front desk of my gym on Monday. I had no idea what would be there, and I went and picked it up today.

 Here's what he and the regional manager sent me!  A new helmet, new gloves, a water bottle, a dri-fit shirt (which was the right size!), and a card. This was so thoughtful!  I love the card. Here's what the inside says.

I found this to be so encouraging.