It’s been almost three months since I lasted posted anything here. That’s a record for me, and I’ve been pretty good over the years at leaving big, empty gaps from time to time. This gap has been mostly due to the usual excuse – work. I’m writing what will be my 14th book in 18 years. It’s based on the long “Aging” series I posted to my blog last fall starting here. I spent June through October last year reviewing the latest research on the subject and writing about what I was learning every few days. I learned a lot and hope to share it with you. As you might guess, the topic of the book currently in progress on my Mac is about senior – over-50 – endurance athletes. I’m really enjoying writing it but it takes a lot of time to do it right. Tentatively it will be called “Fast After 50” and will release about the end of the year.
I also put on a seven-day triathlon camp in Mallorca, Spain last week. With preparation, admin, and follow-up there was little time for anything else for about two weeks.
But those aren’t the only things that have kept me away from this blog for so long recently. The biggest consumer of my time in the last nine weeks was related to recovering from a bike crash on January 24. That resulted in seven broken bones including the clavicle and scapula, a concussion, blood clots in both legs and lungs, a partially torn rotator cuff and shoulder labrum, and what docs call “adhesive capsulitis” (also called “frozen shoulder”). After six days in the hospital trauma center, all of these injuries required numerous trips to various medical specialists, X-rays, CT scans and an MRI. Then there have been three weekly visits to my physical therapist (Endurance Rehab) going on since late February. All of this left little time for anything else.
As I know some will be interested, here’s what happened with my crash. There may be a lesson here for someone other than me. On January 24 it was a windy morning in Scottsdale, Arizona. In fact, there was such a strong wind that I considered not even riding. But being the typical greedy athlete (I was less than one TSS point from breaking a CTL of 90 – my highest ever in January) I decided to press on. I had ridden in strong winds before. I was about 36 minutes into an easy two-hour recovery ride when a very strong, rogue gust of wind hit me from the left side as I was going down a slight hill at around 25 mph. It blew me into the curb. As near as I can tell the bike flipped and I landed on my left shoulder and side. I have no memory of anything from the time when I realized I was about to crash until four hours later when I awoke in a hospital bed. I think riding with Zipp 404 wheels was related to being blown off the road. These rims are quite deep providing a kind of sail effect (I have since purchased Zipp 101s which have a smaller rim).
I was fortunate that the driver in the car behind me was also a cyclist. He stopped to help, called 911, then checked my wrist ID and called my wife. Had I not had an ID on and being unconscious, my wife wouldn’t have known about it for at least four hours. I highly recommend wearing an ID bracelet when training as you never know what might happen.
I won’t bore you with more details as I’m sure that if you’re a cyclist you’ve also had your share of crashes and don’t like to read about them. I know I don’t. So let’s move on.
In two weeks (April 10) I’m speaking in Parsippany, New Jersey for the Tri City Orthopeadic Center. For more details go here. If you live in the area, I hope you can make it. And the following week renown Paleoista Nell Stephenson and I have been invited to speak to Airbus (aircraft manufacturer) upper management at their Global Leadership Symposium in Hamburg, Germany. That’ll be fun!
But with this travel it’s likely you won’t here from me again for some time. We’ll see.
