It is not easy to see your friends hurt and in pain. Especially good friends who have been through good and tough times together - both in sports and in life. Which makes this post a hard one to write.
I am talking about our crash (we all fall down) last Saturday. It was a 100km round island ride. We were doing good times with only two breaks - Punggol point and Mandai Shell. The accident occurred at the 84km mark along Nicoll Highway. IN was at point on aero when he swerved to avoid the curb, hit something and went down sideways. PK was drafting close behind, couldn't brake and flipped over IN. I was at the end, saw the accident, tried to brake, wobbled and couldn't get my cleats out in time before going down. Thank God there were no vehicles behind us.
IN suffered quite a few abrasions on his hands, shoulder and legs. PK broke his left collar bone and was in considerable pain. The x-ray confirmed our fear. PK's had a collar bone fracture and was advised to adopt a conservative approach to allow the bone to heal naturally with close monitoring.
IN went on to do the sprint aquathlon on Sunday in spite of a swollen hand and wrist. Good thing an x-ray showed that there was no fracture.
As for me, I had a small abrasion on my left shoulder and my left wrist and palm hurt on twisting motion. Nothing serious.
The crash put some of our races in jeopardy. But that is the least of our problems. As HW says, there will always be other races.
More significantly, the crash is a test of our determination to push through this wall - the wall of physical set-backs. There will be challenges ahead for us, but we will overcome.
To quote Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: "Was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker." “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
2 comments:
oh dear, hoping that the injuries you all sustained will heal quickly.
Accidents will happen. If it is not cycling, it will be running or something else. So keep going. Pick yourself up after a fall, laugh about it and carry on. Just be careful though.
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