Some days the trails give you flow.
Some days they give you bruised ribs and a reminder that you\u2019re not as invincible as your helmet would like you to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This little lunchtime ride was supposed to be exactly that: a quick spin, nothing heroic, nothing fast, just rolling through the woods to clear the head. The Strava <\/a>file even proves it \u2014 no KOM ambitions, no red\u2011zone heart rate, just a relaxed loop. And then came that<\/em> corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trail was still damp from the previous night\u2019s rain, the kind of damp that looks harmless until your front wheel politely decides it no longer wants to participate in the concept of friction. I wasn\u2019t even going fast \u2014 which is the embarrassing part. At higher speed, the wheel probably would\u2019ve cut through the mud instead of surfing on it like a bored seal. But no. Slow and careful was apparently the wrong choice of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Front wheel slips. Well\u2026 beginning of the story, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, it didn\u2019t seem too bad. I stood up, checked the bike (obviously the priority), took a few deep breaths \u2014 ouch<\/em> \u2014 and continued riding. Surprisingly, biking to the office was still possible the next day. Not comfortable, but possible. Pedalling doesn\u2019t require much rib involvement, apparently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Running, however\u2026 running was a whole different universe of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every step felt like someone poking a bruise with a stick. Uphill? Manageable. Downhill? Absolutely not. Flat? Also not. Breathing? Optional, but recommended. It took almost a full month before running stopped feeling like a medieval punishment technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And sleeping? Forget it. The first nights were an endless rotation of \u201cthis position hurts\u201d and \u201cthis position hurts even more.\u201d Lying on the left side? No. Right side? Also no. Back? Only if you enjoy feeling like a stranded turtle. I basically slept in 12\u2011minute intervals and woke up every time my ribs reminded me of their existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weeks later, things finally calmed down. Running became tolerable again. Sleeping returned to something resembling sleep. And the bike? The bike, of course, was fine the whole time \u2014 smugly hanging in the garage, waiting for the next ride, pretending it had nothing to do with any of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s trail life. Sometimes you get flow. Sometimes you get mud. And sometimes you get a gentle reminder that even slow crashes can hurt like hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least the Strava activity looks innocent. No one would guess the trail tried to assassinate me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some days the trails give you flow.Some days they give you bruised ribs and a reminder that you\u2019re not as invincible as your helmet would like you to believe. This little lunchtime ride was supposed to be exactly that: a… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow-4DgCw:productID":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[23,24],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-mtb","tag-accident","tag-bruised-ribs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailrunning.madmap.at\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Bike tilts.
Ribs meet ground.
Gravity wins.
End of story.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Aftermath<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Slowly Back to Normal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n