A Lesson Learned.

Last Thursday I rode my bike to Deer Park and back, which is a routine route that I ride.  Usually, I have the pleasure of riding with my speedy friend, Tiffany.  However, she had a prior engagement and wasn't able to ride along.  So off I went, happy to be out in the beautiful evening sunshine.  About 15 minutes into my ride, I stopped at an intersection to wait for traffic to pass.  I unclipped both shoes, took a drink of water and set off again.  Stupidly, I didn't get my left shoe re-clipped on the pedal, lost my balance and took a spill.  My right shoe stayed clipped in, my bike fell on top of me, I got a bit scratched up, swore a little and moved on to finish a 2 hour ride.  When I got home, I  cleaned up and noticed some light bruises were appearing on both sides of my right knee, along with the scratches I already knew about.  Finally, although I didn't locate a bruise on my hip until Saturday, my right hip was stinging like crazy.  Fortunately, no serious injuries to worry about.

Fast forward to Sunday's Radiant Lake triathlon.  I hadn't really been on my bike since Thursday, but I did continue to ride 1:45 after I wrecked it that night.  So it seemed good to go for the race, especially since Greg (thank you, sweetheart) had changed my wheels and generally looked it over for me.  HOWEVER, at the race, about mile #2 of 14 of the bike leg, I heard an odd clicking noise and then my right bike shoe shot forward off my pedal!  With trepidation, I regained my composure and was able to "click" back into the pedal.  But when I did, it felt all floaty and not properly clicked in.  Kept riding albeit a tad gingerly.  About once a mile, my shoe would unclip and shoot out in front of me, I'd reclip and carry on.  I literally prayed every single time my shoe unclipped, "Please God, let me finish this ride before my shoe breaks completely."  At around mile 10, as my shoe floated out to the right, I saw that my cleat was all but disconnected from the shoe and out shot my shoe again!  So I made a plan...I convinced myself if my cleat broke off, I'd simply take off my shoe, pocket it and ride with my foot on my Speedplay pedal.  Why not, I only had less than 4 miles to go?  Luckily, the cleat held and I made it safely into T2.  As I rolled my bike into transition, a race volunteer asked me how the ride went.  I told him about my shoe.  While I was changing into my racing flats, he inspected the shoe.  We found that three of the four screws that SHOULD hold my cleat on my shoe, were actually missing!!!  My cleat was holding on by one screw.  This explained the floaty feeling, the disconnection of my shoe to pedal, the clicking sound I heard a few times while riding and the reason I kept coming unclipped.

This is not a post to make excuses of why I could have ridden faster or any other kind of excuse.  This is to say that I really, really should have checked all of my equipment before I raced on Sunday.  After falling over on my bike, while remaining clipped in, I might have suspected all was not well.  This was an important lesson to learn.  One I hope I don't have to keep re-learning through my own stupid mistakes!