Race Report: Wichita Cyclocross Weekend, Day 1

I shouldn't have tried to do this race.

I was taking one more lap to practice the course before we started staging. I didn't really want to (it hurt!), but I figured I should make the best of my last 15 minutes and not let my body get cold. Coming up on the second set of barriers, I was moving too fast. I didn't release my right foot in time. My front wheel ran into the barrier. My bike tried to go up and over. My foot tried to stay in the same place. My ankle sort of got caught in the middle.

It seems like I have a pretty hardcore sprain. I've got a puffy, flesh-colored tennis ball connecting my shin to my foot. It was extremely painful for a while. Like crying and quivering kind of painful. Now it's just faded to a dull ache. Hurts to dorsiflex.

As soon as I could (probably about the time the ibuprofen kicked in, actually), I got up and started walking around. USAT club championship is tomorrow at Redman; I was slated to race the sprint. I figured that if nothing else, I could walk the 5k, assuming I could walk. Driving home from the race, I was convincing myself that I could do it, that I should at least drive down to Oklahoma City and see how I felt tomorrow.

My best friend, who broke her ankle freshman year of college (it's still not back to normal), talked me back out of it again. She pointed out that if I tried to walk/run tomorrow, I might damage the ankle further; I might damage it permanently. And she also questioned whether I should really try driving on the interstate (this is my right foot, we're talking about). Sure, I can depress the brake and the accelerator. But if something ran out in front of me and I had to brake quickly, would I be able to?

Ultimately, it's not worth the risk. Redman was important to me, but it's probably not worth the potential long-term problems that running (ha! hobbling) on it at this stage might cause.

So I'm sitting at home with frozen vegetables wrapped around my ankle, which is propped up on a chair.

And the worst part is that I don't even get to try out my new, over-priced, team custom Oakleys.

(Um, actually the worst part is that this is the end of my tri season and I was in great shape for it. But the sunglasses thing is funnier.)

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