The Best Laid Plans…

How does that saying go about the best laid plans…?

It would seem that I shouldn’t post training plans on my blog. It ALWAYS ends up that I NEVER follow them, or something comes up that throws them for a loop. For instance, on Friday I had posted my training plan for the weekend. This included 4 laps around Fullerton Loop and possible swimming, trail running, and time on the wobble board. Here’s how the weekend really went… (I didn’t have my camera with me.. so we can only live in crappy computer drawings)…

Headed out to Fullerton and started mountain biking at about 9:15AM.. late start, but not too bad. Weather was gorgeous. We kept it pretty quick to start, and were keeping really good time. The goal was to do each loop in about an hour. Fast forward to about mile 7… where we encounter a downhill section that is separated from the hikers by a fence…

Mile 6.08 (this is at the start of downhill section BEFORE the relevant section)... Should have heeded the sign...

Halfway down this section (which is not too steep and should be fairly easy to ride)…

Red Arrow is the location of "not too steep" section...

Youc an probably already see what's about to happen...

I tumbled about 10 feet and to the other side of the trail (about 4 feet to the right). I was a bit tangled up in my bike, as my left thigh was stuck between my turned around handlebars and the bike frame. I know I had hit my head on the trail as I tumbled because I felt it, but luckily for the helmet, no scrapes or injuries on the noggin. I laid there for a while, but was able to untangle myself before Minh reached me on the trail (he was further back that I thought.. which was good because he didn’t run into me, but bad because he didn’t get to see the crash). Rodney (a co-worker) stayed up the trail a bit to warn people that I was down and to steer clear. I took about 15 minutes to collect myself before continuing on. Still had 5 miles to ride back to the car.. suffice it to say, we did not continue on.

Injuries sustained:

It’s not as bad as it would seem on the stick figure… no blood..

I was lucky to not have broken anything or to shed any blood (which would have been a different story on the road), but I was in loads of pain the rest of the weekend… which meant.. no swimming (banged up shoulders), no running (bruised and scraped up quads and shins/calves), and a lot of lying around. And today, I’m still very sore and the bruises on my quads have turned the expected black-blue that makes me look like a domestic-violence victim, my neck and left shoulder are a bit sore, and the muscles in my back are achey.. but I’m totally hitting the gym tonight to see if I can still swim (if only very very slowly) and maybe some easy lifting.

Lessons Learned:

Number 1: Ride within my abilities. I wouldn’t say that Fullerton Loop is beyond my abilities. It’s a beginner ride that Minh and I have done plenty of times. The real lesson is to not become complacent because it’s a beginner course. I picked a bad line, which resulted in a bad crash. I should have been looking further ahead and seen that I needed to change from the left side of the trail (where the ruts are) to the right side (where it was nice and open and smooth).. but I didn’t. I thought that I could handle it.. and I ended up being wrong.

Number 2: Keep my plans to myself (and Minh.. and whoever else will be riding with us).

This isn’t going to keep me off the bike, but it will definitely make my riding a little slow for a while. Crashes always tend to do that..

Oh.. and that saying..

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ leave us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

– Robert Burns, To a Mouse