James Cunnama’s Blog

The Beach House

After a very successful Embrunman and a short farewell trip to Leysin, I was unceremoniously evicted from Europe due to my visa reaching its expiration date… Okay, so I wasn’t evicted, I left voluntarily, but not willingly – the threat of deportation and never being allowed back in Switzerland kept me from pushing my luck. Regardless, it was time to leave. Which meant I had to decide where to go…

Home (SA) was not a great option, seeing as it is still winter, albeit the very mild winter of South Africa, so I decided on the US – events to choose from, people to stay and train with and the fact that I had a visa in passport already. (Of course, that was only a small comfort, as they are pains to point out that a visa does not guarantee entry, which is still subject to multiple entry criteria – it would be a nervous James who got off the plane in New York! Needless to say, I made it through immigration, otherwise this blog would certainly have a different title (and tone!).)

So now I am at my side-kick’s house in Normandy Beach, New Jersey. Scott and I are back into the training hard for the upcoming Rev3 race in Cedar Point, Ohio, with Bek hanging around here too, completing the Super-hero trio. Normandy Beach, and New Jersey itself has been quite a change from Switzerland, most notably due the total lack of anything resembling a hill (Scott actually told me he has done ‘hill’ repeats up and down the bridge over the river!). But there is plenty of good riding in the countryside, a great outdoor pool at the nearby Atlantic Club (which will soon become a covered ‘bubble pool’ when the weather gets worse – thank goodness!) and we have some good running with a track nearby – all of which we are making the most of as we build on the gains from a summer in the Swiss mountains.

The Beach House, as it is fondly known by all, is a special place indeed. Scott stays here all the time, but the rest of the family – his dad and nurturing (and slightly batty) mother, his brother with his wife and two cute kids (who call me Batman), his pregnant sister with her hubby, and various other friends and relations make the short trip down every weekend and the house is transformed into an energetic, noisy, colourful and vibrant mix of characters, which is incredibly entertaining, if a little exhausting! Although I am not much a beach person, and do miss the mountains a little, we are only a 2min walk from the beach which is great for the hot summer days we are currently experiencing and after a summer in the mountains, it is a refreshing change.

My favourite feature of the house - The Magic Closet...

That's my kind of magic... always fully stocked!

I am here for at least 3 more weeks, and next weekend promises to be the craziest of the lot in the DeFilippis Beach House as it is Labor (or Labour ) Day weekend (Monday being Labor Day), which signifies the end of Summer and it is apparently followed by ‘tumbleweed Tuesday’ as this summer town becomes a ghost town again for another 9 months… The weekend will be a good one, but I can’t say I am dreading the peace and quiet which will follow it…

Bek returns today from her impressive win at Louisville, and then ‘Super-hero camp’ will be complete again – Onward and upward…

"The Hardest in the World"

Embrunman – the T-shirt says, ‘The Hardest in the World’. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t – people cite other events like Norseman – but it is right up there in the difficulty stakes and none of those other events have the strong competition Embrunman boasts! 3800m swim, 188km ride with 5000m climbing then a marathon, also with a fair amount of climbing. A tough day… maybe the toughest…

The swim started in the dark. The reason is beyond me – it is not like anyone was in danger of riding in the dark, and they were running in the dark anyway! A half-hour later start would have made a huge difference! I know it would have made a difference to the girls who got an extra 10mins in the dark water with their head-start, and it would have helped me too – about 50m into the swim I swam straight into a jetty! There were no lights on it, but a bunch of big men in boots (that’s all I could make out) pushing us off in the right direction. Needless to say I lost the lead group. I swam with one other guy and we swapped the lead a few times to come out about 3mins down on the leaders.

Up the first climb, which you hit after a nice 400m or so flat warm-up (!) and I caught and passed a lot of people. Near the top I caught Stephen Bayliss and a group of 3 others, which was the lead except for Marcel Zamora and Herve Faure up the road. (Oh, and Tereza – it would take us a while to reel her in!) We caught up to the lead pair at the base of the Col d’Izoard – a massive Hors Category Tour climb, 15.9km and average gradient of 6.9%, up to about 2360m alt. – and then the fun began… Up the mountain the group, much like a tour stage but without the drafting, rapidly shed riders until there was only Zamora and myself left with still a good 9km of climbing to go! And that is how it would stay until the end of the bike, just the two of us. Neither of us gave much at any point of the next 100kms, marking every move up the hills (in fact riding side-by-side for most of them), attacking the descents like dare-devils and pushing the tempo on the (rare) flat sections. I rode 10mins faster than last year for a race-best (and perhaps course-record?) 5h52 bike split (compared with ‘normal’ IM of around 4h30!)

What goes up... and up... and up...!

Down the final, dangerously steep, rough and pot-holed descent he got a small gap, but leaving transition for the run, Zamora was within sight. 42.2km’s to go. All I had to do was stay within sight of him and wait for the cracks to appear… I saw signs of some cracks, but they were mine, not his! He was very gradually pulling away from me, and despite all the spectators and Doc on the sidelines - probably due to his weird running style which makes him look like he may collapse at any second - telling me he was on the limit and would blow, he didn’t. I stayed as close as I could to pick up the pieces if he did blow, but he ran a very solid 2h53 marathon to beat me by a few minutes, in new course record. (Results)

Congrats to all my team-mates who flew the teamTBB flag very high and proud – T-mac for dominating the women’s race and Bella for toughing out 4th. Steve for his hard-fought 5th, Brandon for finishing an eye-(and mind-)opening experience. And of course my wingman, Scottie for 7th – another fantastic result as he continues to climb the ladder. And a big thanks of course to Doc who popped up all over the course with what we needed (if not wanted) to hear, and Fiona, whom he dragged along with him!

Top 10 - 3 from teamTBB!

It was definitely, as advertised, the hardest day I have ever had in triathlon, and perhaps my life! It is always amazing to me how short your memory for pain is – I distinctly remember thoughts such as, ‘This has got to be the stupidest race in the stupidest sport in the whole stupid world!’ and ‘This is by far the worst and toughest day I have ever lived through!’. …But then you finish and you cannot really remember the pain associated with those thoughts and you dismiss them as self-indulgent dramatics. And you look ahead to the next challenge, the next race, to next year at the same race. I’ll be back. …In fact, I can’t wait!

Onwards and upwards…

So, following on from my race report on Alpe D’Huez, now that I had a day off to catch up with myself, here is the story of how we got to the race, and back:

Like every Tour de France, this one started not in France but in a neighbouring country – Switzerland in this case. The field was much reduced from last year, with only four participants rolling out for the first stage on Sunday – although this means no peloton to sit in, it would prove way less stressful! There was no prologue on Saturday (Ed’s note: There was actually a prologue – it consisted of a very long run up a very steep hill, but seeing as no riding was involved it was not counted in the tour…) so no-one was wearing yellow yet. Scottie, Matt, Dave and myself rolled down the hill heavily laden to the caravan park – this was where our soigneur would relieve us of our bags to be delivered to the end of stage 1. Once the load was considerably lightened, we set off…

Coke, Sprite, Shake, Beer? Stupid question... They serve beer at McD's!

Stage 1: 152km, Leysin to Albertville, with one Cat 1 climb early in the stage and then rolling hills to the finish. The first climb passed without incident and we were over the Col de la Croix and into France pretty quickly. We descended to the beautiful Chamonix-Mont Blanc where we went through a feed zone (Ed’s note: For this Tour the feed zones did not consist of muizet bags on the fly, but rather a leisurely lunch at a coffee shop…). We rolled on and reached our destination, Albertville with no drama and on time – no doubt thanks to the lower numbers! Unfortunately our soigneur, Emma was less punctual so we killed the time with some McDonald’s calories…

Stage 2: Albertville to Alpe D’Huez, 120km, two climbs, one Hors Category, one Cat 1. Day 2 dawned after a very restful and relaxing stay in an up-market establishment on the outskirts of Albertville (our team budget for accommodation fell short of 5-star, so we had to settle for none-star!). Perhaps the best start to a day on the bike you could imagine – the weather was perfect and we were gently cruising down a very scenic valley – our spirits were high… but so were the mountains we had to climb today! We already had a casualty though, so our number was down to 3. (Shame, Dave is only a short-course boy… ) We stopped for a good feed in another feed zone before the climb up the Col du Glandon.

Muizet bag? What's that?!

We climbed the Col (alt. 1960m) feeling good, some more than others – or perhaps some just bolder than others – and after a brief rest at the top (it was cold up there) descended the other side which came out at the lake which would host the race in two days. Then it was another climb up the back way to Alpe D’Huez – we didn’t want to spoil the surprise that the 21 switchbacks would provide on race day by going up the front way…

And the climb begins... (Ed's note: 5% is the current gradient, not the average!)

Day 3: Rest day. We met up with the rest of the team-mates who had left much larger carbon foot-prints than us on their way to Alpe D’Huez and spent our rest day doing what all good tour riders do… training! Good hard swim, easy run, easy ride…

Our race numbers proved prophetic...

Stage 3: Race day, Alpe D’Huez Triathlon. 2.2km swim, 115km cycle (3 climbs, Cat 1, Cat 2, HC), 20km run at 1850m alt. Race video here. This would be where all the jersey’s for the TeamTBB Tour de France were decided… I got yellow by a huge margin, and although it was close competition for the polka dot KOTM jersey, with Scottie already a few points ahead from Glandon, I claimed that too by a mere 1:09 over Scott. Results for climb up Alpe D’Huez. (Ed’s note: TeamTBB boys were more than 3mins faster than anyone else up the Alpe – and the only one’s on Cervelo TT bikes. Road bikes? pffffffff! )

Stage 4: Alpe D’Huez to Annecy, 180km flat stage. We started with a nice swim to loosen up the bodies before a midday stage start – it would prove fortunate that the sun sets late on this day… We had again lost a member of the tour (Matt had to stay in Alpe D’Huez as he had not yet done his short-course race) but we substituted him for Bek-star – so it was Batman, Robin and Wonderwoman (or Catwoman – she seems to be having an identity crisis at the moment) who set off on another daring adventure! …It was more of a long day in the saddle than a daring adventure, with nothing much eventful except the occasional torrential downpour just to ensure we weren’t having too much fun. We rolled into Annecy as the sun set – which is around 9pm! Race radio’s proved faulty today and so we were unable to contact our soigneur until after our arrival – like I said, long day in the saddle! (Ed’s note: Race radio’s for this tour consisted of sms’s between international numbers which cellphone companies like to delay for many hours at a time. Fail.) With the help of our very stressed out soigneur, Emma we made it to another zero-star hotel about 10pm, found some more food (luckily we had a good feed earlier at a Kebab shop in Chamonix) and crashed. The tour was beginning to wear on us, but spirits were high still, even if energy levels weren’t…

Stage 5: Final day. 150km Annecy to Leysin, one Cat 1 climb, mountain-top finish. Again the weather played along and it was another great day in the saddle. We cruised through Thonon-les-Bains and Evian and the familiar training roads guided us home and lifted the spirits. But by the time we rolled into Leysin the long week had caught up with us and we really only rolled up the hill to Leysin – no exciting final-day sprints or anything to this tour…

Total: 6 days, 737km cycled, plus some running and swimming.

Another great experience with teamTBB and my team-mates and another fantastic week of training. Thanks to Brett for helping us organise it all, Cyrille Neveu, the race director for looking after us and of course to Emma Smith, our able soigneur for meeting us at all the night stops…

Next stop, Embrunman. Won’t be riding there though!

Onwards and upwards…

So this past week we went on a little journey from Leysin further south into the French Alpes. The purpose was to race the Alpe D’Huez triathlon, and in the interests of global warming, we thought it best to ride our bikes there… More about the journey there and back in my next blog to follow soon. First, the race report…

Race day dawned and we rode down to the lake from Alpe D’Huez town before the race. It was a chilly 30min descent and I was pretty cold by the time I got there. Fortunately it was a beautiful morning so I basked in the sun and warmed up quickly. But I was soon to be very cold again… For the first time ever I had race number 1. I think that means you are the race favourite, and I was certainly aware of more eyes (and cameras) than usual on me on race morning. No complaining from me though – I just basked in more than sunshine all morning…

Into the water we went for a deep-water start. Oh. My. Gosh. They said it would be cold, but seriously?! Doc’s instructions, to avoid the dreaded cold-shock and associated loss of breath from sudden exposure, was to get in early and just get cold. …There was no need to get in early for me! I was cold in 30 seconds! I swam over to the opposite bank where my team-mates were out of the water again in the sun. I almost caused a landslide cos I was shaking so much!

And then we were off… I felt like I was in syrup. It took me about 1ooom to warm-up, but having been behind in the swim my whole career, I was certainly not stressed about it. Once I warmed up I started to feel really good, and that is how I felt the rest of the day! On the bike and down the first long gradual descent it was clear I had more gears and a better position on my Cervelo P3 than all the others on their road bikes. Advantage James…

Up the first hill (or mountain – Col du Grand Serre) with the main pack I just paced off the group and matched all of Xavier le Floch’s surges. (He said afterwards that he was testing me and thought that I didn’t look too strong up that hill – P …P …P …Poker face! ). Down the other side and, although they could match me in the corners, I had them beat on the straights and flats. As I started up the next climb (Col d’Ornon) I was pulling up to the lone leader and had a good 3mins on the chasers. Still feeling great. I cruised up the hill and took the lead in the final kilometre of the climb. The next descent was ridiculously fast and twisty and went on for miles… I LOVED it! I felt like a kid pushing the boundaries on my BMX again (I am sure my Mom’s memories are less fond, and she sure wouldn’t have liked to see me going down here!)

At the base of Alpe D’Huez I had 1min on 2nd place and 4min on the chase pack – certainly not enough time should I blow a gasket going up this one, which is far from impossible when you look at the climb - 13.8 km at an average 7.9 per cent, with 21 hairpins. If you blow, you don’t lose 2mins, you probably lose 20! But I had got my feeding right and didn’t blow, and despite someone telling me halfway that the gap was down to 3mins, it turns out I came into T2 at 1800m alt. with a good 8min lead. (This was possibly due to my motivation when the going got tough – Scott and I had challenged each other on who would have the fastest climb up Alpe D’Huez – results still unknown!)

The run was suitably tough, but I still felt great – maybe that is something to do with leading… I am not sure but will let you know after my next race…

As I came into the finish chute a group of South Africans (from London, go figure) were waving a South African flag which I grabbed and flew the flag as I crossed the line for the first win of my career!

Big congrats to Scottie for his first podium and Jodie for winning the ladies race in emphatic style. Also to the rest of the team – Bek 2nd, Lisbeth 4th, Tamsin 5th and our soigneur for the teamTBB Tour de France (more about that also in next blog) Emma for 10th.

So now I am back in Leysin and preparing for the next challenge in the French Alpes which, believe it or not, makes the Alpe D’Huez race, with its three Tour de France category climbs and 20km run at 1800m alt. look easy – Embrunman on 15 Aug…

Onwards and upwards…

So this past weekend I got back on track. After a few bumps in the road and having to withdraw from Ironman Austria, I needed a race to get both my body and mind back in the groove. So we looked at the calendar for a race to use as a ‘hit-out’ and one race stood out from all the rest – perhaps the most famous race outside Kona, and I think the biggest long-distance triathlon in the world: Challenge Roth.

My picture by Lea(7) - It's me running in the road with spectators , and of course all my competition back behind me!

Felix and the Challenge family were more than accommodating and days after recovering from the  bug which side-lined me in Klagenfurt I was off to Roth to stay at a great homestay (Thanks Hagen and Kathrin, and of course Lea). The atmosphere in Roth was electric and I was soon getting excited for my race, despite original goal of the exercise… which was to exercise, really…

My race itself wasn’t anything spectacular – despite some pretty spectacular feats happening around me (well done to Chrissie and Rasmus for impressive wins) I pretty much just got the job done, to finish in 6th place in 8h18.

The swim went pretty well for me  - my blueseventy suit performing as well as ever. Then it was onto

Fierce? Well it was comfy and fast!

the bike and for the first time, I didn’t have to remove my blueseventy… well, not entirely… We were racing for the first time in the new tri-apparel and it was awesome! Apparently we looked ‘Fierce’, but you be the judge:

The Solarberg - incredible!

After the first 3rd of the bike I spent the rest of the day pretty much ‘flying solo’. Well, I wasn’t flying the whole time, but I was solo the whole time… It was just as awesome out on the course as all the hype around the race suggests – climbing the Solarberg, a short hill out of town was incredible with crowds 5-6 deep on both sides and only a narrow passage to ride through, or no passage until you were right there!

Besides dropping and then standing on my Oakley’s as I went through transition, meaning a long run with no shades (the biggest downside of which was that I could not so easily hide the pain in the tough parts), the only real news on the run was my proximity to the leading lady! Normally when you go 8h18 you don’t even see the top ladies, but on this day I had to fight hard just to finish ahead of her! (Doc’s thoughts on this here)

All in all a great experience and a fantastic event! I will be back, and next time I won’t be worrying about the ladies, not because CW will be slower, but I intend to be much faster!

Next week a fun trip to the famous Alpe D’Huez for the long-distance tri there – looking forward to it!

Onward and upward…

So, without reliving it all, lets just say that the last few weeks have been testing for me. More downs than ups; less steps forward, more steps back; more the statue, less the pigeon… you know what I mean. But it can’t go on forever and sooner or later things will turn around and you will be on the up again. That happened today.

When I woke up I was grumpy. And it didn’t get better as my stomach continued its reign (or rain ) of terror over the toilet. The walk to the pool was no better and, as my team-mates will attest, I was the picture of happiness. But I had had enough, and despite the insistence of some that I should be in bed, I was gonna swim. Thankfully it was a short swim, cos for all my valour I felt like death…

After the swim I felt better though and after breakfast it was off to the track for a little run to see how the legs felt. So I packed my shoes and a full roll of toilet paper and headed down. The session went well, although I stopped before I could overdo it and surprisingly the toilet paper proved unnecessary. My mood was once again a little better. Then, after more eating (perhaps the toughest part of my day!) it was time for the ride up the hill to home.

As the hill pitched up, I shifted gears. And so did my legs. So did my stomach. So did my mood! I was smiling like a kid in a candy store, and probably looked like a crazy person as I grinned, sang along to my iPod and danced on my pedals up the hill. I haven’t been in a good mood like that for a while!

A friend told me the other day that I needed to be thrown in a lake with my clothes on, or pulled into the pouring rain in order to clear my head and get my perspective back. While I am not sure getting drenched to the skin is entirely necessary, the principle is sound. Sometimes you need to be reminded how fortunate you are and how good life is. And for all the bad in my life lately, life really is good! I am living the dream. While the majority of people work a nine-to-five job day-in and day-out doing menial tasks in the confines of an office or manual labour keeping society moving, I get to swim, ride my bike and run everyday, whilst seeing the world at the same time.

They say if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. That may not be entirely true – every job has some aspects of tedium and hardship, as I have experienced lately. But today as I rode up a steep hill, bathed in warm sunshine, sweat dripping from every pore, feeling that familiar and ever-so-welcome burn in my legs and surrounded by the beauty of the Swiss mountains, all the problems of the last few days and weeks seemed minor and fleeting. And I was reminded that I really love my job!

…Of course it could just have been a caffeine-high from all the Coke I drank today to settle my stomach…

As ever, onward and upward…

As playing on my iPod today: The Parlotones – Motivated

Okay, enough already. I can’t take any more bad luck. Here’s a brief synopsis of my bad luck this year:

1. Ironman SA – stomach bug in week leading up, led to me in medical-tent. Bummer.
2. First week Switzerland – bike crash. Ouch.
3. Challenge France – flat tyre lost me the race. Damn.
4. Last week, bike crash wrote off my Cervelo P4. Shit.
5. Ironman Austria – stomach bug the day before and no start… FFS!

Who said bad things happen in threes?!

Okay, so there have been some good things in between there, like Ironman70.3 Singapore and Challenge Kraichgau. I don’t like to focus on the negative – but it doesn’t take much effort at the moment.

Needless to say I am keen to put this phase behind me and move forward. I am looking for races to do in the next few weeks to get me back on track, but really it is a matter of refocusing the mind and goals and getting the training in. There is still much of the season left and plenty of opportunity to turn it into a great season…

"Can't a chicken get some privacy?!" ...At least he's got toilet paper!

Yeah, I got the rubber chicken this week for my superb performance at Ironman Austria… well, my stomach had a good run anyway…

So this past weekend was the week when it was supposed to happen, but instead this past race will just add to the triumph when I eventually do get that elusive first win. They say you don’t appreciate winning if it comes too easy. Well, I think I’ll appreciate it…

Challenge France did not go according to plan. There was not such a big field and I was pre-race favourite based on last weeks’ performance in Challenge Germany. I got out the water in 5th or 6th and immediately started chasing the leaders, who it turns out were only about a minute ahead. I was going well and was about 2mins down on the leader, with Raynard Tissink at 40km…

Then disaster struck. I felt my rim hit the ground. You know, that awful ‘thunk!’. I ignored it. Just a big bump. ‘Thunk!’ Oh no. ‘THUNK!’ Shit. Flat back tyre. I hopped off and shouted something profane at the trees, my only witnesses now as as Raynard sped off into the distance. Pulled out my silicone repair stuff, it let out one little sigh and was empty. More profanities at the trees. The race was going on without me. Reassess: Fix the wheel and get a good training day in. So I ate some energy bar, had a gel, had a good drink while I waited for someone… Anyone… Then Luke Dragstra came by and very generously, especially considering he would be the only person I caught the rest of the race, threw me his repair stuff. Thanks Luke! I put it in the tyre and it seemed to work, then tried to top up the pressure with a gas and the hole just opened up again. More profanities at the trees (they took it all very well and didn’t take it personally at all ). Then, as I looked up the race mechanic arrived and gave me a new wheel and, about 8mins later, I was off.

The rest of the race I pushed hard against myself but it was really just another day of good training. I ended up 5th, about 8mins off the winner. Go figure.

Well done to Raynard – if it wasn’t to be me, at least it was a South African win during this time of extreme national pride, and of course to team-mates Bek Keat, for a second win in a week, and Lisbeth for a solid 5th.

As always, onwards and upwards…

Okay, so you can scroll down and read the blog before the last, about Singapore 70.3, because again I was second and the feelings are much the same. Again, it is a bit disappointing to be so close (now my 5th 2nd place in the last year! FFS!). But again, I can’t help but be happy with the result, all things considered.

Going into the race, it was my first race on European soil this year and you never know exactly where your fitness is. So it was going to be a fitness test for me, against a very strong field. The event itself is awesome – as always the Challenge guys put on a very professional show and look after the pro’s (and AG’ers) really well. And the event is in the most beautiful area of Germany too.

I started well in the swim and was up on the feet of the leaders for a while, but the pace was fast and a few guys slowly pulled away. I looked around cos there was no way I was going to be the hero and pull the second pack around. I saw Norman Stadler on my left and Michael Gohner on my right. Not doing too bad then, I guess. I found some feet and sat there between the two Germans until the end of the swim.

Leaving transition with Stadler I thought, ‘Perfect. All I have to do is stay with him until we meet up with the front group, then I can stay there even if he goes off.’ Or not. They don’t call him an uber-biker for nothing. In minutes he was out of sight. So I settled for the second pack which gradually grew bigger as the race went on and we caught guys and others caught us. I pushed the last few km’s and went through T2 leading the big group, in 6th position overall. I was 10mins down on Stadler and 6mins down on the other 4 guys ahead. I had my work cut out for me. But I love that run route with plenty of twists and turns and little hills and had good memories of last year where I ran myself from 11th to 2nd. And when you’re already out of the top 5, you’ve got nothing to lose. So I pushed myself from the outset and was quickly reeling in the guys ahead. I ran 1:09:37, my fastest ever half-marathon (including just run races!) and caught everyone except Stadler (I caught up 8mins, but was still 2min30 behind at the end). Second again.

I am very happy with the race and its good to know where the fitness is and what I need to work on. But I am more than ready now for that elusive first win – perhaps this weekend at Challenge France…

Well done to team-mate Bek Keat for her repeat win, and thanks to her mom, Ruth for the great support over the weekend! And big thanks to the Challenge team, Felix, Timo, Stefan and all their staff. Another awesome event.

This weekend – Challenge France in Neiderbronne. Looking forward to another good race!

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So I have been in Leysin, Switzerland for one week already. It is hard to believe as it feels like I’ve been here 2 days. More about that in my next blog coming soon…

The weather was great here for the first three days, but it was just a tease and has been pretty up and down since then (actually, more down than up). It was particularly wet and cold on Friday. I was headed down the hill on my own in order to come back up it, just so I could go back down it so I could come back up it again (they call it training) when suddenly I found myself on my head. Literally. It happened so quickly I don’t really know what happened, but I lost the front wheel on a wet switchback and hit my head and hip hard. I didn’t even have time to put out a hand to lessen the impact on my head –  but that was proabably a good thing as I would then have had a broken arm, and why waste an arm when you have a perfectly good head to break your fall?

I did a quick check that nothing was broken (on me and the bike), then went the rest of the way down. I probably had a good excuse not to go all the way to the bottom of the hill and just head home, but I don’t think like that. (…Well, I like to think I don’t think like that, but after a hit that hard on the head I think I wasn’t thinking like I normally think at all, if you follow my thinking.)

Anyway, I found myself at the train station and turned to climb home. I thought I should give myself and the bike another once-over before starting the long haul. The bike was fine. But I was seeing stars. Literally. There were flashy, colourful dancing lines everywhere I looked. …Well actually, no. They weren’t everywhere I looked, as is the case with these things, they were frustratingly just off-centre of where I was looking. But as my eyes tried to lock on them, the little buggers moved. I’m not sure if I was dizzy or was just making myself dizzy from trying to focus my eyes on the bright dancing thingies! Now there was a train right behind me which was heading to within 200m of my apartment, and again, I had a pretty good excuse to take that train. But like I was saying about the way I think… or don’t think… or wasn’t thinking …perhaps I was just too distracted by the bright dancing thingies in my eyes…

I started up the hill. My legs felt surprisingly good, but adrenalin will do that to you apparently. The stars in my eyes went away pretty soon too. I think I was going pretty well although I don’t really recall a whole lot of the trip – it all seems somewhat dream-like looking back now. At one point though I had a very wonky moment and some weird thoughts went through my head. I can’t remember them all but one was definitely something about The Hungry Caterpillar children’s book… Don’t ask.

Anyway, I made it all the way up. I even considered going back down and doing the second climb I was supposed to do. (Jeez, I must have hit my head hard!) Actually the only thing that stopped me was the thought of having another ‘wonky moment’ on the way down and waking up in a hospital not knowing my own name…

My injuries are not bad at all. My left hip was the worst  but the bruising is going down now and I can run again. Other than that, a bruised shoulder and small bump to the cheek-bone where the helmet didn’t protect and I am no worse for wear (if you don’t count the few lost brain cells).  It was a close call though and it would have been a lot worse if not for my helmet (thanks Louis Garneau!). Not that I wasn’t an ardent helmet-wearer already, but I will never moan about putting my helmet on again -without it I really may have woken up in a hospital with ‘John Doe’ on my chart!