This was not part of the plan!!!!

Needless to say the events this weekend weren’t in my training plan for a successful season! Because of the incredibly warm weather we have been having I took the NRS out for what was supposed to be a 2 hour easy ride. I hit the trails and everything inside was telling me to open it up and enjoy tearing through the open trails in January. I kept an eye on my HR monitor and wanted to keep everything in check. The first lap was pretty slow going with lots of trees down I realized that we were in for some major trail maintenance this spring. On the second lap right as I got going my front tire slipped on some wet leaves and washed out. I knew the drill all to well; tuck and roll. Problem was when I tried to unclip the bike was already laid down pretty good and my foot on the ground, keeping me from twisting it out of the pedal. As I was hitting the ground I heard a series of about 10 LOUD cracks. I laid there for a second thinking “that didn’t sound good!” I have some very profound thoughts while riding!!!
Anyway I got up slowly and my ankle was killing me. I made it back to the parking lot and then called Cathy to pick me up and told her to stand on it. While I was waiting the pain just got worse then ever, I felt queasy and thought if I closed my eyes long enough to blink I was pass out. I must have looked funny hobbling around the parking lot bug eyed, and spitting to keep my breakfast down!
Cathy got the bike loaded up and after making a quick stop at home to put on some clean underwear, you know what they say: don’t go to the hospital with dirty underwear! This is where the magic happened. When we finally got to see a doctor, he took a look at the X-ray and then poked around a little, and then after 8 years of medical school he profoundly said, “I think it’s broken”. What!?! I could have told you that, the fact that I now had a grapefruit in my ankle would have been a pretty good indication that I had more than an ingrown toe nail!! He followed that up with come back on Monday and a different doctor will look at it. I wonder if I would have broke my neck if they would have sent me home and said, “come back Monday or Tuesday and we will take a look at it then”? Anyway, Tuesday I got in and they put an Aircast on. That gives me enough support that I can hobble around. Sounds like I will be wearing this for about 6 weeks. After that I have another 6 weeks before we are back in business.
I asked the doctor when I would be able to get back on the bike and after a long pause he said, “welllll as soon as the pain goes down you should be able to start riding again, as long as you don’t crash.” More deep and meaningful words from some of the highest paid workers in America!
All right enough roasting doctors. I am glad to hear that I don’t have to stay completely off it for the entire 6 weeks. I am going to give the trainer a shot this weekend and see how that feels. Otherwise looks like I will be wearing out the rowing machine at the Y.
We'll see how healing goes, but looks like I am going to be a little weak early on and then come on strong mid season. Hopefully I can use this to my advantage.