Tuesday went better than Monday even though I crawled out of my tent having significantly less sleep than I had hoped and was in quite a bit of pain. Breakfast was a parade of people asking how my shoulder was and all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner, eat food and try to get a bit more sleep. Frustrated by the outrageous number of conversations I had before 6:15 in the morning I just decided to take down my tent all by myself and get out on the road. I probably overdid it a bit trying to stuff my sleeping bag in the stuff sack and taking my tent down. I got my shoulder taped by a physiotherapist which hurt a ton and departed camp not really sure how long I’d last out there on the road.
With the morning behind me and permission to increase my dose of ibuprofen if I wasn’t taking the Hydrocordone I set out from camp. The whole ride was into the day long headwind and I rode with Eritia for 95% of the day joining a few other pace lines here and there. The day stayed cool and my armwarmers stayed on for the whole day. Things turned around maybe 20 minutes into the ride when we started to get to the rolling hills that had destroyed me and my lack of shifting ability the day before. I had asked Lawrence to index my gears which had been switched to friction shifting after the bent derailleur. He made the adjustment for me and that really did save my day. I was able to reach across the bike and shift with my good hand quickly and accurately. When I gained a bit of control over how my day was going to work I felt so much better. The next 140 kms were all good even though my shoulder gave me more trouble than yesterday. I enjoyed the day on the road and upon my arrival at camp escaped to the library so I don’t have to answer questions about my shoulder. I can sit here and type and just answer the barrage of questions “How did your day go?”, “How’s your shoulder?”, “Did you catch a SAG wagon?” by putting my index finger over my mouth.
What would I rather talk about? There is a 40km time trial planned for Thursday. I would of course like to go under 1 hour but considering the circumstances will be quite pleased if I’m able to be under 66 minutes. Paul Tichelaar of Edmonton finished out of the medals in the Men’s Triathlon in Beijing with a 33 minute run split he’s probably not so proud of. Simon Whitfield however did bring home the silver medal for Canada. We cross the border into Canada tomorrow so I guess I need to find my passport sometime tonight. It sounds around camp like people are more excited about going to Tim Hortons than they are about anything else in life. Some of us Canadians have had discussions about what habits of Americans don’t make a lot of sense. Well this one takes the cake, I have no need to go there tomorrow, nor the next day for that matter.