Subject: On my failure to show up for Dryland Mon. June 11th

Hey Coach,

I will not be at dryland tomorrow morning. I crashed my bike today. Yes. Again.

I seem to like riding fast and aggressively. That's all I can figure. My friend Albert says if I would have just let him pass me this wouldn't have happened. I said if he would be a gentleman and let me win, it wouldn't have happened. Of course, even if he let me "win" I would still ride as fast as I could just to show him how much I could beat him by.

Anyhow, four miles out from the finish of the L.A. River Ride today, riding up the river trail to Griffith Park, Albert and I were racing each other at about 21 mph and I did not see the buckle in the pavement. Suddenly I'm in the air. And then BAM down on the ground. Albert said I made a noise (he was beside me) looked across, I was in the air and then Bam, down, and he says that when I hit the ground I just stopped and did not slide. At 21 mph on my right hip. Pretty much the same as in November, but of course much more force. Hurt much more. He says it was scary. I guess so. Wish he would have video'd it so I could see it too.

I was not able to get up and ride my bike the last four miles to the finish. In fact, I wasn't able to walk. (The bike is OK, don't worry. I protected it with my body.) They called a SAG truck to come pick me and my bike up and take me to the finish. I had to be carried to the truck.

I am able to sort of hobble around now (we can pretend it's walking, but the lady in the parking lot at In-n-out asked me, "Esta bien?" and asked me if I'd been to the hospital today. So obviously, I don't appear to be OK.)

Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Chris didn't see it (he was a good 10 minutes behind us) so don't believe anything he says.

I am hoping I will be able to come to 6 pm swim on Monday night and at least move around in the pool in some kind of therapeutic manner because I don't make a very good land mammal at this time.

And I just finished writing up my next 5 weeks' training plan last night. Sigh.

Hoping to see you Monday night,

Sheila