What a Day!

I should have known that today was going to be an interesting day when I rolled over to see what time it was and saw that it was 5:07am. I know to most of you out there that is early, and to be honest that is pretty early for me too. The problem with this is that I was supposed to be running with James, Dawn, Terri and Vicki 7 minutes ago! My alarm was supposed to go off at 4:00am so that I could get out of bed and get ready for a tempo run. I figured that there was something wrong with my phone until I went into the alarm settings and noticed that I set it for 4:00 PM!!!!! There you have it I missed my tempo run and I couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to get up, eat, drink a lot of coffee and start work early.

You would think that that would be the worst part of my day.......nope! I decided that since I missed my tempo run this morning, I would get a little seat time on the bike. I called my friend Eric up and he said he would join me. I wanted to do 20 miles or so just to get back on the bike. We started around noon at my house and rode to Clyde Station on the Longleaf Trace. That is roughly a mile, nothing big, I just like to start from my house to get the feeling of the open road. We then went from there to the Gateway Station at USM. During our ride we talked a little about how I have yet to change a tire, but I knew that it would happen sooner or later.....I am sure you see where I am going with this now! Yep, it is amazing how a conversation can tell the future. We made it down to the gateway and turned around, I was a bit hungry so I decided to reach into the little bike pack under the back of my seat to get a lara bar. As I was zipping up the pack with my right hand I jerked my front tire with my left hand and that's when it happened! Basically my front tire went perpendicular to the rest of my bike and that sent me and the the bike into a kind of a flipping motion. I think that I did about 1.5 flips with the bike when I came to a halt. Feet still clipped in, I looked at my hands that had gravel stuck in them from "softening" my fall. Obviously my bike tire was flat and I got to practice switching one out. Well actually my friend did most of that while I tried to gain composure and clean my hands up. We got the tube in and aired it up only to notice that the actual tire had a pretty big hole that the tube was sticking out of. This was not going to help us get anywhere, and we were about 7 miles from getting back to my house. To make a long story a little shorter, I am glad that we had a phone on us and that we could call another friend with a truck to come pick us up.

Total miles on bike today: 9.28 and probably about .01 on my face, but still connected to the bike.

After I got home and did a little damage assessment I took a few pictures with the phone, here is what I took:

I know James, I didn't break mine.

Not as bad as I expected it to be. I am pretty sure that I will need a new front wheel set up. I'll be taking her to see Drew tomorrow over at Hattiesburg Cycle Center to get her all fixed up for me. Hopefully she will be ready for me to hound out 100 miles during next weeks training.

What a WONDERFUL day! Pahahaha!