Home and healing

I made it back home to Boulder Friday night despite the weather in KC doing its best to keep me there. They had a tornado in the vicinity just before our plane was scheduled to take off and security herded us all to the bottom level of a parking garage. I'm not sure about the engineering merits of that place, but I didn't feel all that safe inside it. Anyway, after a few minutes, we were no longer at risk, so Bryan had to push me in my wheelchair back in to the airport and through security once again. Thanks for all the patience, Bryan! I couldn't have made it back without your help.

We finally landed in Denver pretty close to schedule and just a short drive later, we were back home. I had one more stop to the night - a quick trip to the boulder hospital ER to confirm that the shortness of breath I was having was just because of the chest bruising.

That was the trip back home. It was a lot more relaxing and normal going over the weekend. I was addicted to watching the live coverage of the Tour of Missouri from my computer. Yea VDV! Mission accomplished. I still remember the team meeting before the first stage. We got what we came for.

Now, I have a lot of time to myself to heal up as fast as possible. Its a little harder to come up with things to do when you can't spend 5 hours out on the bike. Driving myself somewhere is out of the question. At least the weather is great right now. I'll have to enjoy the outdoors, nearby at least.

Thanks for all the support everyone!

hanging in there

This isn't my first choice where to be writing a blog entry, but it will do. I'm writing from the hospital room where they have been taking great care of me. It was awesome to see Christian take over the leaders jersey in yesterday's tt and hold on to it today. That did a lot to boost my spirits here. I'm hoping to be discharged from here either tonight or tomorrow. None of my injuries require more attention. The just need some time to heal up and its hard moving about. It looks like a broken pelvis, collarbone, sternum, and a lung contusion. It could have been a lot worse still, as there was a large drop off to one side. Luckily I don't have any memories of the crash, just the abulance ride afterwards.

Thanks everyone for their supporting notes, flowers. etc. I really appreciate that. I'll back soon, I promise.

And the winner is...

It was a suspenseful few moments following the US Professional Road Race Championships. I crossed the line with all sorts of emotions running through my head. I was thinking of the victory sprinting to the line, but now I had a was feeling crushed with the possibility of defeat, yet the elation was still there. I was silent. Circling back around to the finish line, I waited and at first nothing, then the announcement that Tyler Hamilton had won. Gone was the elation, just disappointment. I had an incredible team help me all day to get in that position and dearly wanted to pull it off for them. Maybe in a day or two, I'll be able to stop reliving those final few inches of the race, but I'll admit, that's all I could think about last night. It makes me that much more hungry for the win. From now on in every race, every training ride, every sprint I do, yesterday will be in my mind, pushing me on.

The race went perfectly for our team up until that last meter. Lucas, Cozza, and DZ made up part of a dangerous early breakaway that lasted until the final lap up Paris mountain. We went gangbusters up the climb and had nearly our entire team remaining in the race with less than 20 other guys. Everybody rode like a champ today and I owe them all of the credit for putting me in the race winning move.

So... now its back home for a few short days, then Missouri, and back to Europe! I still have a lot of racing left and enough motivation to keep me goings straight through December. October 18th is my last race, though.