Stitches - Weren't part of the days agenda.

In preparation for next weekends Fools Gold 50, I decided to get a 40 mile Mtb. ride in on Saturday morning, a week before the race to see how 40 miles on the mtb. would feel. Last summer I rode just over 4000 miles cross country, so whats 40 miles on a mountain bike? My longest ride to date was in the neighborhood of 15 miles. Granted they were technical and tough miles but not a long duration in the saddle.

I grabbed a good breakfast including cereal, a banana, and a PB&J to start the day off right. Greg showed up around 7:30AM and after a few quick adjustments on his bike we were on the road. I had planned a ride that included about 11 miles of flat road out to a nice long sustained climb and a 5 mile ride atop the ride before entering Desoto State park where I've been riding recently. The loop in the park is just over 11 miles putting us at 30 before the 10 mile ride home.

The first 18 miles went really smooth and took just over an hour and a half. We got into the park and I was super pumped to be out and riding and getting in a long ride before my weekend in Nashville. Michelle and I were headed to Nashville as soon as I got home, hopefully getting on the road not later than noon.

The trails were going really well finishing almost the entire loop in just over an hour which is a great time. Right after the hill that is appropriately name Nothin' there are a few technical sections that include some hard off camber 90 degree turns. I wound up eating it about 500 feet from the trail head with the blunt of my fall being caught by my left elbow. A few expletives later I pushed my bike to the trail head and headed down to a campground with running water. I rinsed out my elbow to hopefully get any grit and dirt out. After cleaning it up I noticed that my elbow was pretty bad and I may need to get it looked at. Not before I snapped a quick pic though:

I was more bummed that I wasn't going to get the full 40 miles in then about my elbow!

I decided that I didn't want to blow our weekend in Nashville so I called Michelle to come pick me up without notifying her about why I needed a ride. Fast forward about 20 minutes and Michelle showed up and I loaded my bike in the car and calmly said that we should make a pit stop on the way home...the E.R.

After explaining what happened we figured if we had any shot at making Nashville we should find an urgent care and avoid the E.R. at all cost! 2 urgent cares later and I was seeing a doctor within 10 minutes, getting cleaned up and.....STITCHED. The following is what ensued...

Michelle documented...

Cleaned up, looking rough!

Iodine and sterile!

The Novocaine shot was the only part that hurt.

Getting stitched up, feeling better once the Novocaine kicked in.

Thanks Doc! All stitched up!

All in all, the stitches weren't part of the day. And we did make it to Nashville for the weekend, just got on the road about 2 hours late. To add insult to injury my Garmin was dead so I didn't get any ride data. Last I checked with Greg though we hit 29.8, so while short of the planned 40 miles it was still a decent ride on the mountain bike.