his first...and hopefully last

D is in training mode for his IronMan that will occur late this year.  Part of his training is building up endurance for the 112 mile bike portion of the race.  Today, D and 5 of his training buddies headed to North Georgia for a mountain ride.  On his decent down one of the mountain roads, while making a turn around a curve, his tire hit the slick yellow line (it had been sprinkling) and D crashed.  He crashed while going 35 miles per hour down this road.  He hit his head on the pavement, cracking his helmet.  He damaged the aerobars on his bicycle (along with some serious scraps on the bike) and tore every article of clothing he was wearing as he slide down this mountain road.  He later joked it was a good thing he had played baseball and had been taught how to slide.  I didn't really see the humor in that.

Thankfully, D is ok.  He has whiplash from his head hitting the pavement and some nasty road rash and cuts, but he will be fine.  He is going to be ridiculously sore in the morning after he has slept and his muscles have tightened, but he is going to be ok.  I am thankful to God for wrapping His arms around D while he rode and crashed.  Had a car been coming around the curve, this could have had a much worse ending.

Once D was done giving me a scare, and once he was safely back at home, I headed out for a baby shower.  My friend is having a girl...fun seeing all the pink!  After the baby shower, we ran some errands (dropped D's bike off to be repaired and purchased a new bike helmet and some new clothes) and then went out for Mexican.  We are now back home, kids are asleep and D and I are resting...he is hooked up to a heating pad.

Praying the rest of his training season is dull and uneventful.

Here are a few pictures I took.  I only included one picture of his cuts/road rash...figured no one needed to see all of the battle wounds

this is what the aerobar should normally look like

this is what the aerobar looks like after the crash.  Those aerobars are not pliable...so that was a pretty hard crash to get it to bend this way

some tears and scraps in his outer shirt

his riding shorts and tights underneath

tear in riding shorts and tear in knee of tights

thank God it was cold out and he was dressed in layers.  He had several cuts underneath the clothing that DIDN'T tear, would have hated to see what he would have looked like had it been hot outside and he wasn't dressed in layers.