My race yesterday at USA Nationals in Buffalo, NY was going well until a crash on the 7th of 8 laps of the bike course. After recovering from a very slow swim, I was actually riding well, helping my group chase down all of the packs in front of us, and trying to maintain a fast pace. Most of the time I was rotating with a few others at the front of the pack, but with 2 laps to go, I kind of drifted toward the back to assess who else was still with us, to see what I was dealing with for the run. Just at that moment, 2 girls in front of me got tangled up and went down, I did my best to avoid the situation, drifting to the right where I saw open road. Unfortunately, someone came up on my right and I was knocked off my bike into the gravel shoulder. My coach, Cliff, was right there and told me to get up and keep riding. It took me a second to figure out what was going on, but I got up, did a few minor bike repairs and started riding. I was having a hard time holding on to the bars and looked down and saw that my hands were all bloody. Then I thought, ok, just use the aero bars. Tried that and realized that I had a cut on my elbow and blood running down my arm. I managed to finish the last 2 laps of the bike (with a rubbing brake) and thought I may as well try running, even though I had lost so much time. Once I got on the run course, I realized that my hip was really sore and looked down and noticed that I fell on my hip too. I tried to keep running, but things just didn't feel right and then everything started to hurt. After about 2 miles of running, I pulled out of the race. Later, I realized that I have a bruise right on the part of my hip that has been recovering from an injury all season. Right at the spot--of all places!!
