Playing Catch-up (Part 2: CC #5 and Pure Stupidity)

Finding inner peace before the CC#5 race

Lining up

Ok...now for part two. After doing well at the 6 Hours of El Lagarto with my dad, I was ready to get back to some regular cross-country racing. Lucky for me, the Coconut Cup was still going on. My dad and I drove down to Miami by ourselves Saturday afternoon for a quickie, guys only race weekend.

I love Amelia Earhart Park because it's such a fun course and I was hoping to do really well here. Unfortunately, I had a horrible start and went into the single-track in sixth place behind Francisco. Eventually, Francisco let me pass and I caught up to John Koch and passed him, putting me right behind Dustin Zimmerman.

Dustin is so silly!

I pretty much stayed in that position for the rest of the first lap, until a really big 14-year-old passed me coming into the finish at the end of the lap, moving me from fourth to fifth place.

During the second lap, I just kept riding my pace. Near the end, though, John caught up to me and made me work extremely hard to hold him off and keep him from passing me back. We had a really exciting sprint to the finish and I just barely beat him to the line to keep my 5th place podium spot.

John right on my wheel during the sprint

It was definitely a great race and I had a lot of fun, like always, at Amelia.

And now, for the pure stupidity part....

If you follow my blog, you know that I try to work a few hours a week at Brick City Bicycles. Well, my dad and I were there to do some bike maintenance on Valentine's Day. After the bikes were done and while my dad was paying (more like talking), I took one of them out for a little spin around the building, like I have done many times when test-riding different bikes.

Anyway, I rode up on this loading ramp that I like to go part-way up and then jump down from, but a car was in my way and I couldn't get off at my usual place. So I ended up going off the ramp at the high part (about 3 feet up) and flew over the handlebars, hit my jaw on a pole, and did a face-plant on the asphalt. The really stupid part was that I wasn't wearing a helmet, because I thought I was just going to do a quick lap around the building before putting the bike on the rack. After all, what could possibly happen in the parking lot? (yes, that is sarcasm) Let me just say that one of my first coherent thoughts after the accident was that I should've worn a helmet (and that was before I realized how hurt I got).

WARNING: PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO FOLLOW

So....after 7 hours spent in the ER, 14 stitches under my nose and over my lip, a CT scan, and a scalping, I can definitely say that I learned my lesson the hard way--If I'm on a bike, I'll be wearing a helmet and you should too (and no, my mom was not nagging me when she saw the pictures of me riding without a helmet before the accident & yes, she made me admit that).

A lot of people texted my dad or commented on Facebook to wish me well when they found out I got hurt, and I just wanted to let everyone know how much I appreciate it. Even Jeremiah Bishop commented, which is pretty cool.

Coming soon is Part 3, where I'll cover the 12 Hours of Santos.