Masochistic Mountain Bikers

Dude.  I am in so much painnnnnn!!  Wanna see?

Can you see how swollen my left knee is?  Ouch.  Ouchity ouch.  And obvi, you see the bruises and scrapes everywhere.  I will refrain from showing you the enormous bruise blossoming on my hip, because it's in close proximity to my Buttocks Flesh, and I wouldn't want to show you my Buttocks Flesh.  I've been scandalous enough to show you above my knee.  But I'm not that tarty, to show you my Buttocks Flesh as well.

This is from falling while mountain biking.  Twice.  Yesterday.

And yesssss, I was wearing full biker pants.  Which are now torn up.  Apparently I should have worn knee pads and elbow pads as well?  I obvi was wearing a helmet, thank goodness.

Ben's coworker/buddy is way into mountain biking, and he invited Ben and I to do on this group ride that some bike shop sponsors. They let you rent the bikes and helmets for free; probably to help people "catch the bug" of mountain biking and lay down some major moola for their own bikes and gear.  One of the dudes in our group said that my bike was worth $6000.

Ay, carumba!  Whoooo spends $6000 on a bike?  Maybe people without kids?  (Kids are really expensive little creatures.)  Or really rich people?  Bend contains many kidless rich people.  Many, many, many.

Anyways, the shop sends a few of its employees along on these rides.  What did they call themselves?  Ambassadors.  Ambassadors.  Haha!  I love it.  One of them kind of leads the pack, and one is in the middle, and one is at the end, to make sure everyone is safe.  Which I appreciated.

I had zero idea of what we were getting into.  I figured that, since this ride was for beginners/investigators, it wouldn't be too hard core.  Um, I was wrong.  There were these places with two trees really close together, and you had to go in the middle of them, with these enormously wide handlebars, and try not to get the handlebars to hit the trees...Eeeee!  Ben calls that "Thread the Needle."  He used to do a lot of mountain biking before we were married.

And then there were these little hill things that had huge boulders on either side, so you had to try not to get your pedals caught on the boulders.  And then going downhill and trying not to skid...  Eee! I'm such a wuss!  There were times when I was kind of...squealing...nervously.  Squealing really is the best descriptive word for it.  I was going, "Eeeeeeeeee!!"  Like a little squealing piggy.

Ya know, I never wanted to be a wuss, growing up.  Whenever we went waterskiing, I pretended to be nonchalant and totally brave when preparing to jump in the water with my ski.  But inside, I was quivering a little bit.  It's a little scary!  And all of my sisters will attest to my extreme wussiness when it comes to rollercoasters.  O.M.Geeeee.  All three of them laugh really hard and raise their arms in the air and smile ear-to-ear.  I scream bloody murder, and then my throat runs out of sound, so my mouth is still in an O, but nothing comes out of my mouth. And then I nearly faint from sheer terror.  They love to take turns sitting next to me, because they find my roller coaster fear quite humorous.  I have a really funny picture somewhere of Dad, Nat, and me riding on this big, scary ride at Lagoon.  They tie you all together in a bunch, and then they swing you way, way back, stories off the ground, and then let you go.  You swing back and forth a few times, and then they reel you in. And in the pictures, Nat and Dad have their arms stretched wide like birds, and they're smiling, and they're looking at the scenery from up there.  As for me, my eyes are tightly screwed shut, and both of my arms are clamped to Dad's arm.

Back to mountain biking.  I guess that, when you're going through or over these obstacles, you kind of stop pedaling for a minute and hold your pedals at the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock spots to avoid getting snagged by big rocks, tree stumps, bushes, etc.  And I didn't know that, so my first fall was because my pedal ran into a tree stump.  That's when I hurt my right knee and hip.  I was wearing my compression sleeve and glove on my left arm, and they did a good job of protecting that area. Luckily, compression stuff didn't rip, but it is a little on the fuzzy side now.  My OT is going to kill me.

The second time I fell, it was my own fault.  I had been taught the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock pedal rule by then, but I kept forgetting, and this time, my pedal ran into a big old rock that was sticking in the ground.  I landed in a bush, but the bush didn't really break my fall very well, because that's when I got my left leg injuries.  Sigh.

I almost cried that time.

Ben did great.  He was taking all these jumps, threading the needle with much proficiency, and not getting winded when we summited big hills.  I was quite jealous.  I was really huffing and puffing up those hills, mainly because my blood pressure remains obstinately low.  And here is Mr. Never Works Out, kicking my trash.  That's how it always is.  We went jogging together a couple of months ago, and he hadn't jogged since...high school?  I don't even know.  And he was totally outlasting and outdistancing me.  Rarrr.  The healthy jerk. :)  Haha!

I need to remember that my body is still in reconstruction mode.  My OT put it this way:  "Karlenn, your body just experienced Hurricane Katrina.  Everything was wiped totally out.  You're at the point right now where maybe you have running water again in some sections, and some electricity again in some sections, but for the most part, there is a massive reconstruction happening.  And it's going to take a really long time to get you to where you were."  So that makes me feel better about my physical limitations.  I can't expect so much from myself.

We stopped at a summit, and I was breathing pretty heavily.  This cute older guy (who kicks my butt at mountain biking) was like, "Here, drink this packet of goo.  It has some sugar in it and will totally help you."  So I swallowed a gulp of goo and nearly vomited.  It tasted just like that horrible orange drink that you have to ingest before a gestational diabetes test.  But in goo form, which made it worse.  When I told the others that, they all looked at me blankly.  Because none of them had ever been pregnant.  Because they're Rich Kidless Dudes. And One Rich Kidless Lady.  So then the nice old dude gave me this almond granola bar thing instead, and that was yummy.  And gave me more energy, I suppose.

Ben's buddy let me drink from his water bottle.  Ben and I were grossly underprepared.

Do you like my shirt?  It's my fave.

So today, I've been very, very lazy.  Sitting on my buttocks flesh and not moving around very much. Not so much because I'm lazy, but because moving hurts.  :)

I told Ben he can go solo next time.  I prefer my exercise in the Will Not Cause Bodily Harm category.  He can go bond with the other males (and one female) who haven't ever had to drink the gestational diabetes drink, and I shall remain at home, blissfully intact.