Just in 20 k proper red right now. Thank you for your comment. Starting to feel human again.
Wow that has to hurt. Big Bang.
I had a slam yesterday…being pressured from behind by the Grom on my tail in singletrack…did big berms and twitchy ditches in the singletrack…feeling good and relaxing albeit at pace on the last 2km…then a moment’s lack of concentration and onto the marbles in a flat turn….washout to the left at the front and I thought ‘well this’ll be a slide…’ and suddenly B A N G the world explodes, my left knee contacts the ground HARD, followed by my right arm and then right hand side of my face - wearing a full face so no contact of skin with ground but a hell of an impact to my head. I think I had forgotten just how fast I was pressing on. The Grom immediately said ‘…why were you going so fast….’, as well as showing sympathy for rapidly swelling knee. Large bruise on head of my tibia on the inside of my left knee. That means a lot of energy went into the joint…my knee pad on the right preventing big cuts on the chain ring…series of serations on my RH knee despite the pad…but the knee pad did not cover the tibia head on the LH … if I had been wearing my POC pads then there would have been more protection.
Immediate reaction was to ride on, fast….and I think that was the right call. An evening on the sofa with the leg up, no anti-inflammatories since that‘s the new protocol with soft tissue injuries…good night’s sleep but HUGE knee in the morning…move as much as I can, massage it, and since the joint is implicated, now is the time for 400mg of Ibuprofen.
Worried about the flaccid leg muscles…detached tendons would be A Bad Thing…but slowly tense and release the thigh muscles in turn and think the flaccidity is just coming from a protective reflex…but will need to monitor that.
Now…why did I see the need to go so fast? Partly because of leading the trio, partly because I am trying to get some training for the summer season. But the Grom’s right…I could have been cruising rather than pressing hard. He is one to talk…in anything gnarly he’s at warp speed.