Proverbs 13

A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream realized is the Tree of Life.

What you are looking at is a phone-camera snap of a radiograph of my lumbar spine. The black arrows, professionally drawn with my forefinger on my phone. Those black arrows are pointing at crumbled chips on the anterior surface of my lumbar 1 and 2 vertebra. You can also appreciate how the vertebra are compressed down - as vertebra are supposed to be square-ish blocks with even space between the bones for the intervertebral discs to rest, I have rhombus shaped vertebra and uneven intervertebral spaces.  

Fuck this shit, man.

I had been training since November for Dirty Kanza 200, before I ever knew I was in, and then was really ramping up my efforts in February through March, because I had joined a two-woman relay team for Race Across the West. I would write blog posts in my head while I was getting my base miles in, but I never sat down to type. Instead, I would sit down to eat and fall asleep. 

All of that went up in a cloud of smoke this past weekend. I was on a 300k (196 mile) training ride in north-east Kentucky, getting my ass whooped on the foothills, when I was hit by a car. It's a long story, and I think I want to go prop my feet up at this minute, I will wait to record it all at a later time. All that it worth knowing is this past week of being angry, and super painful, and doctor's appointments, and oxycodone fogginess has left me with some definitive answers that just made my heart sick.

I am out for DK200. I am out for RAW. I may heal faster than anticipated, but the last spine specialist was very clear: I won't be putting any significant miles down until July.

Fuck this shit, man.