The Accident

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August 5, 2018 there I was, on the ground.  I could hear the sound of breaking glass and I was extremely dizzy. I tried to look around but everything was black.  I thought to myself “oh-oh this is serious, you are going to have to get yourself some help”. Reaching back into my jersey pocket I was happy to find my phone.  As I was trying to figure out how to get the phone off airplane mode I started to regain my sight.  I wasn’t sure if I had cell service until I reached a recording with instructions on what to press if I really was trying to dial 911.  I guess dialing 911 is no longer enough. “Hi, I have fallen off my bike and I am going to need some help”.

My short-term memory was failing me, I didn’t really know how I ended up separated from my bike and sprawled out on the trail.  My longer-term memory was much better. I was half way through my first ride of the week, knocking out a significant chunk of my 99/9 plan.  This was the year I was determined to get fit and lose weight.  I had been fighting the weight and fitness battle over the previous 10 years.  I had spent the past 6 months making changes with decent results in the most recent 3 months.  I was eating a Mediterranean diet and exercising.  I was enjoying the summer, riding my bike 99 miles and walking 9 miles per week. I had lost nearly 50 lbs and was in a great space but now was laying on a trail talking to a 911 operator unable to get up on my own.

"911 What’s the address of your emergency?" With the help of some people that happened to come upon me in this precarious situation I was able to give the 911 Operator a better idea of where I was located.  Transported to the hospital by ambulance I got the first look at my helmet, which was split and I was becoming aware of the road rash.  As I waited in the emergency room to be picked up for the CT scan I was overcome with a deep sadness.  The tears started to flow, not because of the road rash, multiple bruises, broken ribs and clavicle rather this sadness was deep in my soul.  I was finally doing it; I was in the best physical shape I had been in for years.  My 99/9 plan was a success though I was painfully aware this was not going to be my plan going forward.

It was determined I would need a clavicle plate implant and surgery was set for August 10^th, five days after the accident. During this time I was receiving emails from the FitBliss (www.fitbliss.com) group in relation to a Salesforce.com Dreamforce wellness challenge.  This was tied to the upcoming September 2018 Dreamforce conference I was scheduled to attend.  I had heard about this wellness challenge the year before and was interested in participating this year though I felt like in my current state I didn’t fit in, couldn’t participate, or even effectively contribute to my team.  How silly would it be to sign up for a wellness challenge in my current condition? I signed up, took a short gentle walk and had surgery the following day.

I spent the next 3 days healing my body and more importantly my mind.  Over this time I learned physical movement was my best medicine.  I explored the Fitbliss Wellness app and saw my previous 3 months of activity was included in the initial sync. I couldn’t believe that while I sat there with my broken body my stats reflected an athlete! I told myself “I am an athlete! I just now have to figure out what kind of athlete I am today to be the athlete I want to be tomorrow” and that is where my true road to recovery began.

I started walking; the current Fitbliss challenge was a steps challenge.  One foot in front of the other, I could do that.  I was part of a global team, of people who may have had their own obstacles (time, health, fitness level, state of mind) and I was actually not doing so badly.  While being respectful of my injuries I transitioned my 99/9 plan to a 5/5 plan, five miles five days a week.  Both my surgeon and physical therapist are shocked at how far I have come in such a short time and all with nothing stronger than ibuprophen. 

I am grateful for the Fitbliss team and the Salesforce.comOhana for picking me up off one trail and helping me find another!

Bringing Home Blue

May 25^th 2014 we awoke and found that my garage had been broken into. My garage was not the only garage that had been broken into, the police were quite busy that morning taking prints and writing reports. The car was completely tossed and some electronics were stolen. I was heartbroken when I realized that my bike, my friend had been kidnapped!  .

Over the past 15 months I have missed my bike. Even 15 months later, every time I saw an electric blue road bike I give it a thorough eye scan to see if it is mine.  This was pretty easy to do because my bike was pretty rare.  While it was not a super fancy bike it was an entry-level carbon frame bike and fully loaded cost upwards of a few thousand dollars.  The bike was customized to fit me perfectly and I rode her anywhere from 600 – 1000 miles per year.  She was an American made carbon frame, the last year they made that model in the US before outsourcing to China.  Yeah she was pretty special.

On June 20^th I received an email and a picture of a blue bike from Ms. P.  She said she saw a bike that did not fit the rider.  She snapped a couple pictures of the bike and gave me the location.  I called the police who told me they would not help unless I was at the same location as the bike so I headed for that location. I arrived more than an hour later only to find the bike was gone.  The neighborhood was 16 miles away from where I live and only seeing the area around the Goodwill Outlet, it all looked pretty sketchy!

I was disappointed but very grateful that someone saw the bike and took the time to see if there was anything they could do to get the bike back to the owner. I am assuming she found my information on bikeportland.org where I registered the bike as stolen.  After she heard I was coming across town in rush hour traffic she rode back to the bike to get more information, though even at that time the bike had already left the area. 

Ms.P did not stop there, she posted a picture of the bike and my contact information her neighborhood site nextdoor.com kind of like a neighborhood message board.  This morning I received a message from Ms D who had a lot of detail about the location of the bike and the person who had it.

The person was Kenny Pruett, pictured here in all of his glory.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/09/three_people_arrested_on_accus.html

The email gave me a lot of detail and warned me to be careful!

I have replaced the bike and was not 100% sure it was my bike and knew that even if it were my bike it would have damage. I thought about just letting it go and then I thought again.  I headed to the address provide to me from Ms. D. When I arrived it was obvious that it was ‘that house’ you see on the news.  There was a lot of junk in the yard with a ‘free’ sign on it.  I walked around looking to see if I could see any sign of a bike but nothing.

I was not there 10 minutes and a man rode up on a nice black Trek mountain bike. He was very polite and asked if he could help me.  I told him I was looking at this bike trailer and was hoping he had some bikes for sale.  He told me no and we chatted it up a bit.

He told me that his girlfriend lives in the house and is going to court on the 7^th when she is expecting to be sentenced to jail. The house belongs to her mother and once she is gone the mother will be selling the house. This was a great neighborhood and I am quite sure this house has been the source of many problems.

We talked some more and he told me that he had a really good blue bike but he was not selling it.  I asked him more about the black one but he told me it was hot so he didn’t want to sell it to me. He did tell me that he had a really good friend with lots of bikes for sale and likely a road bike like I was looking for. I asked if he would show me his blue one so I could see if that is what I would want to buy and he ran inside and brought it out.

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest, this was my bike!  Yes, it had the expected damage but the first thing I noticed was a chip I had put in the paint. I saw the rusted bolts that attached my custom headset, then the wedges in the brakes that brought them in to fit my reach. I asked him what size the bike was and he told me a 56. I told him that sounded big, could I try to stand over it? As I straddled the bar, yep this is my 58” frame!  I then asked to take it for a spin and he said ‘sure’.  I rode it down and around the corner.

I knew the final proof that it was my bike would be the serial number. I jumped off the bike, laid it on its side and tried to take a picture. I am not sure why or how but at first I could not get my phone to be on a simple normal camera setting!  It was taking delayed timed pictures, videos, squares and who knows what.  I was starting to panic, I was afraid that this ‘bad guy’ would wonder where I was and come looking for me on his other bike!  I finally got the shot and I was now 100% sure with proof that it was my bike!

I headed back, I could not believe that I would be returning my stolen bike to the bad guy.  I had obviously not thought this through!  I rolled back up and told him how nice it was, that I had never ridden something that nice! I asked if he would please sell it to me.  He said he had the bike for about 1 ½ years and he rides it all the time, he really didn’t want to sell it.  He asked if I lived in the neighborhood and I said yes. He started asking for detail at which time I knew I had to refocus the conversation. I asked him if the sewing machine sitting in the yard worked. Whew, the redirect worked. I couldn’t tell him anything about the neighborhood because I really didn’t know where I was.

He told me that this bike goes for $1500 but he would take $800. I told him I didn’t have $800 and asked what his bottom dollar was, he said $700. I asked if he was around during the day and that I needed a day or two to try to scrape the money together.  I held out my hand and introduced myself as Kate.  He shook my hand and said ‘nice to meet you, Kenny’. I told him I would be seeing him around and walked away.

I got in my car and drove two blocks down the street and called the police!  I recanted my conversation from yesterday and informed them now I am with the bike and I wanted it back!  They dispatched an officer who arrived about one hour later.  The officer informed me that I should have taken the bike when I had it because he may not be able to retrieve it from the man. There were a lot of reasons why they could not simply go down there and take it even though I could prove it was mine.  I did share with him that my bike was not the only hot bike down there.

I stayed put while the police went to see what they could do. I could not bear to leave without my bike after getting this close! How could I drive away knowing this man had my very special bike.  My daughter showed up with my bike rack so I could retrieve the bike and I explained the situation. She tried to make me feel better by reminding me that I had replaced the bike and that I should consider it a donation.  She even scooped the loop in her car to check out what was going on. There was two squads and they were having a discussion with him. Then my phone rang, the officer wanted me to drive down and they would walk my direction with the bike!

Yes, he surrendered the bike and admitted that the black bike was hot and surrendered it too.  They did not take him to jail likely because he surrendered the property. He likely surrendered the property because he is on supervised probation for burglary and was trying not to go to jail. Not only did he surrender the bike, he went inside and gave them the wheel that he had taken off the bike!

Yes the bike is damaged and she has been stripped of all her bling but she is back where she belongs. More importantly three bad a$$ women Ms. P, Ms D and myself beat the bad guy at his own game!  I appreciate the bike community of Portland Oregon and the people at Bikeportland.org who made this networking possible.

Petal to Pedal - Silverton Oregon

ath·lete
a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

Gretchen the athlete - sport/exercise of choice - bicycling.

Every cycling season I look for organized rides which here in Oregon are not only plentiful but usually well organized. The Petal to Pedal is my second large ride of the season. I signed up for 60 miles that included some modest hills (modest: limited or moderate in amount) and a trip past Silver Falls.

The night before the ride I took some time to figure out where I was going, when I needed to be there and what I had actually signed up for. Much to my surprise the detailed description of the ride was 68 miles with the first 25 miles including some wicked climbing! I panicked! Being a bottom heavy girl, climbing is just not for me. After falling apart I decided to take the challenge. What’s the worst that could happen? I have never not finished and after the summit it is all downhill and flat - right?

I arrived just after 8:00 and found my weekend riding team gathering ready to hit the road. The strongest gal had already taken off to tackle the 100 mile route, she was out of the park before any of us even arrived. We all rolled out together but I had no plans in trying to keep pace with these strong climbers. I knew I needed to ride my own ride or risk injury, mental defeat, or just plain misery.

After winding our way out of town the fist thing I noticed was a old house that had a 1903 sign on it. This was not the address rather the year it was built. I love this era in Oregon and am planning to take some Oregon history classes. Most of the farms proudly displayed old farm equipment near the road. It was very interesting and I even snapped a picture. The farms were all working farms and the crops seemed to be doing well despite the rain and lack of sunshine. The wheat fields were plush and looking at them made me think of America the Beautiful lyrics “O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain” The gardens near the houses were another story. They did not look much better then the city gardens.

Then it was time to climb! I didn’t attack the hill since a 25 mile hill seemed to be more then I could attack rather I snuck up on it. I kept my head down and tried to find a comfortable pace. My eyes watched my speed reduce slower and slower and while I tried to keep a pace that would get me to the end before sundown I found my breathing became violent! This is the only way to describe trying to force air in at the same time as you are forcing air out. My muscles were tense from head to toe and I was starting to get hot. After coming to terms with a 6 mph pace I started to relax and my breathing adjusted to sucking in through the nose with the suction of a carwash vacuum and blowing out through the mouth with the force of a fire hose.
I knew I was in my last 10 miles of the climb when I looked to the right to see the most beautiful valley. So green and deep, I am not sure if there was a river at the bottom but I had heard fast running water in the distance during the climb. The trees were so tall they appeared to be large Christmas trees atop the longest bare stilts you have ever seen. I took my camera out to take a picture only to find that my battery must had fallen out the bottom while shooting an alpaca while riding past. I was shook up and didn’t think to use my iPhone but I did imprint the scene in memory though I really did want to share it.

Near the summit there was a rest stop where I met an interesting gal. She was sitting in a chair talking to a group about how she rides RAGBRAI in Iowa. That it was much harder then this due to the sweltering heat and humidity. I wondered if she had just rode the last 15+ miles of hills that I had. I mentioned enthusiastically that I LOVED RAGBRAI and that I had ridden in 2008. I asked her what her tie to Iowa was and she looked at me with a straight face and said “I grew up in Idaho”. She then did not say another word. I was waiting for her to say “…and that’s my final answer” to which I would have responded “BZZZZZ I am sorry but the only tie to Iowa and Idaho is that people get them confused.” I know my Iowa friends are laughing right now!

There were a couple more view points before I reached the summit. I arrived without much left. A little wobbly getting off the bike, no camera and if you have ever tried to take your own pic with an iPhone drunk then you can imagine what I looked like up there. I was soaked with sweat but I was happy that I had made it to the summit! Now the fun begins! Screaming down the hills after climbing them is like a sweet dessert after dinner. I expected to encounter nothing but down and flat but there were still quite a few hills. They looks so insignificant on the map next to that killer climb but these small hills were taxing.

I arrived back at the Oregon Gardens to find most of the crew has already come in. I grabbed my wild salmon dinner and we swapped stories. I ended up riding 62.5 miles at an average of 12 mph. My fastest speed was 36 mph, 5 hours and 15 minutes on the bike with another hour off the bike. Someone clocked 27000 ft in gained elevation with the greatest grade of 14%.

I wonder if looking at life through rose colored glasses is as wonderful as looking at it through polarized lenses.