Today was a day I'd rather forget than record here, but I will anyway. I left a bit late this morning wearing leg warmers and my thermal top. I was five miles into my commute when disaster struck.

I was crossing Sycamore street right at the East Falls Church Metro when I was hit by a Honda CR-V. All lights were red going along Sycamore and so I looked both ways and deemed it ok to proceed across. Well, I looked both ways, but only saw the driver moving across the street to turn left onto Sycamore. Apparently he had a green light in his turn lane. He was coming slow and I realized he didn't see me. But by the time I realized he was going to hit me, I was stuck. The median was blocking my escape on the right and in the blink of an eye, I was on the ground.

I was hit directly on my left side and my head smacked the ground. At first I thought the driver was leaving the scene, but he only pulled around me to get out of the road. I'm not sure why he needed to do this, but he eventually got out. A lady had stopped her car and asked, "Are you ok?" I told her, "No. Please call someone." So I assumed she called 911 and she handed me some paper towels to sop up the blood that was pouring out of my head. I was bleeding, as they say, "Like a stuck pig."

The big three of police, fire, and EMS showed up very quickly and checked me out. All were wonderful. They loaded me into the ambulance and we took the short drive over to the Virginia Hospital Center on N. George Mason Dr. They wheeled me into Exam 5 and a nurse attended to my wounds. She cleaned me up after I changed out of my bike shorts and jersey and then waited on the doctor to sew me up.

I drew Yorke Allen III, MD. I now found out that's he's Chief of Emergency Medicine, but I knew I was in good hands just by the way he handled himself. He was experienced, kind, and very skilled. He put several stitches under the skin since I'd gone to the bone. And then he did a masterful twelve stitch job on the skin. I must say that the stitching really is impressive. It looks like a sewing machine. The worst part was getting the area numbed. After that and the tetanus shot, it was a piece of cake.

I have some road rash on my face, left forearm, knee, and shoulder. My ankle feels like it's turned and my left hip is sore. But really, I was lucky and came out much better than I might have expected. I will be sore but healthy. The stitches come out on Tuesday, but it will be six months or so until the scar starts to look different.


We were just about to leave, when Jess started feeling a bit upset and took a stumble. We got her something to eat and drink and waited for her BP to rise and eventually we were both able to get home and take a rest. Needless to say, we were both in need of some rest. She's doing fine and left for Pittsburgh on business after she woke up.

The most amazing thing of all was how my bike faired. There isn't a scratch anywhere on the frame! Just bizarre. I guess I took the brunt of the force because the only thing wrong with the bike was that my brakes had shifted a bit and my real wheel needed a spoke tightened to put it back in true. My luck here was fantastic. The guys at work were joking that I'd be more worried about the Javelin than anything else. And once I was ok, they were right. But it looks like I'll be able to make it out for the Muffin Ride tomorrow if my ankle cooperates.


The weather was so beautiful this afternoon that it was hard to head to work instead of going out for a ride. But I managed to get in four hours of work and then call it a night. On a positive note, I got my upgrade to Category 4 today pending that I race at Carl Dolan. The paperwork is in the mail and I'm excited to finally move up. I'll open up my Cat. 4 schedule at the Tour de Moore, on home turf in Southern Pines, NC on April 29th.

My prayers are with Credit Agricole rider, American Saul Raisin. He is in far worse shape than I.