Up's and Down's of Professional Sport

This is going to be a 2 part posting.
The first will be based around the up's of cycling.
The second will be based around the down's.

So we shall start with the good news and the positives,
A little story, Josh and I were getting some lunch in town while we waited for the bus to Liege on Wednesday afternoon when 2 guys on scooters pulled up. They looked at us and spoke fluent english, we didn't know what was happening really so i let Josh take over as he answered questions while this guy held a micro phone up. Turns out they were 2 radio host's from holland who had found a member of some rock band who lived in Louveigne on myspace (social network on the world wide web) and he thought he could possibly be the singer for this 'rock band'.
I'm not sure if he actually found this guy but it was quite funny all the same.

Josh took me to this 'huge' mall. So when we arrived i thought it looked familiar, when we got inside i realised i had been there before when i was here in 2006 with the junior team. Brought back a few memories.

The Tour de Liege started on Thursday in pouring rain which to this day has not stopped.
It was a very tricky and dangerous first stage but i still had some good legs after 10 days of solid training. A group got away and took 5 minutes and i got away on the finishing laps with a group of 10. So we had Jon up the front in a nice 7th and then me in a chase group with the rest of the team tucked in the peloton after what was a very windy wet day.

The next day started the same as the last ended, i now believe Logan's descripion of Belg, goes something like this "wake up rain, goto sleep rain, wake up rain, goto sleep rain, wake up overcast, goto sleep rain, wake up rain, goto sleep rain, wake up sunny, goto sleep rain" you get the idea. The day started out not bad in terms of physical feeling. but that soon changed as 40km into the stage i was finding it difficult to hold onto the handle bars and by the end of the stage i had ridden 100km in grupetto with 1 hand. The pain got worse.

This is where the bad news starts... that night was one of the most painful nights of my life. and that pain is still there as i type this. before the start of stage 3 i went and saw the race doctor who checked it and said it looks like a broken scaphoid. I was going to start the stage and see how it went anyway. Against her advice of corse! 30km into the stage and that was it, i was almost in tears with the pain of it and that night it was off to the hospital. X-rays were done and there is a little break in there, but because i left it for 3 days the break is harder to spot than if it was taken right after i did it. So now i am going to see the specialist tomorrow who will be able to determine what i can do from here and how bad the break is. I really am hoping for the best though as i don't really want to end the season here with another broken bone. It actually started after i crashed in the 1st stage of tour de luxembourg but i thought nothing of it and just went about work as normal, then that one set of cobbles really did most of the damage that was not already there. So i can take some of the blame for not questioning it sooner but i thought better of it. Could prove to be the wrong thing to do but that is just one of the up's and down's of sports. You live and you learn.

So now i am back home hoping for the best outcome when i go and see the specialist tomorrow morning.


....kinda fell asleep while i was writing this last night...

so we shall carry on, now i have seen the specialist and the news is not so good. Could be worse all the same though.
The scaphoid which was the suspected break is ok and looks normal but the problem is the bone next to it, i don't remember the name but it's long and kinda banana shaped. I have taken a big chip off the side of that. So now i have a cast for 6 weeks but depending on how fast or slow it heals could be 4 - 8 weeks. So that hurts the rest of the season a little bit but there is no point in dwelling. I just have to take the positives and thats professional sport for you.

So i think i will take a trip to germany and visit a mate there for a few days and then will come up with a new plan.

So for the next wee while, i will watch the Tour de France and do some touristy things to keep me sane and hopefully i heal fast.

Anyway thats enough for today, my hand is tired from typing.

Will keep you updated with how things pan out anyway..

Ryan