Mazatlan Moments

I pretty much vegged out Saturday after getting home from the Hospital. I laid around so much my butt felt bruised from not shifting enough. By the time midnight rolled around, I had been sleeping on and off for about eight hours (not including the time I was unconscious in the ambulance and at the ER), so I went with Danielle Kehoe (a US pro from Colorado) to see what all the noise was about outside. Here’s what we discovered:

1. Thousands of cars lined up blaring music, and many of them had several scantily clad people sitting on top or out windows.  Nobody seemed to care that traffic was not moving at all.
2. there was a car with it’s four ways flashing, hanging from a crane about 50 ft over the street.  It was apparently part of one of the many night clubs with thousands of party goers.
3. An empty lot with a free band, lots of people, and dancing (my legs were not responding to the rhythmic requests of the music)
4. Rocking Chairs = Very Good
5. We saw along the shore a place where two waves would cross and white water would be thrown up in a line about 100m long, such that it looked like a rooster tail. It was cool. 🙂
6. I couldn’t find a way to exit the beach, so we climbed a sea wall into a dance club. Security quickly surrounded us (which I expected), but instead of letting us leave toward the street, they insisted we go back out the beach way. My legs disagreed with this sentiment, and I argued with them for several minutes. Eventually they told me if I didn’t climb back down the sea-wall, they would throw me down. I responded with open-mouthed laughter. Danielle, on the other hand, really thought they would do it, and insisted I climb down before we found out. I just stood my ground, smiled at the guy and said, "seriously? You would throw me down the sea wall? Rather than doing that, why don’t you please just escort us to the street?" The guard rolled his eyes and took us out of the club – no throwing involved.

Sunday was more of the same. Sleeping that is. I went to a lecture with Barb Lindquist and the National Development team, in which we debriefed from the race. It was pretty interesting to hear the race recap from people who remembered the whole thing. Matt Chrabot and Jillian Peterson both won, making for an American sweep. I think that’s awesome. They also both did it with a two person break away, which is not a normal strategy.

The real highlight of my Sunday, however, was when I managed to roll over my own foot with a shopping cart. [if you have an aversion to gore, stop reading] At first I winced and counted to ten, waiting for the pain to subside. It did, but then I felt a squishing in my sandal. Biting my upper lip in anticipation of what I was about to see, I looked down to find that the sole of my shot was puddling with viscous, dark, slippery blood.  [you were warned] I had ripped open my heal (The cart literally found my Achilles heal), and the wound was pouring fluid out. I looked for my dad, and found him in the front of the store, but as soon as I got close he looked straight at me, then walked away, not seeing me at all). I stood there for about 10 minutes waiting for somebody to notice and come help. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I couldn’t yell out, and I didn’t want to track the ever increasing pool of blood around the grocery store. Seriously, I have not bled this much from such a small wound before. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. Eventually, my parents found me, found the stores employees and got me some medical supplies to clean it up with. My mom took my sandal to the bathroom, where she patiently waited for a mother and her son to leave before she used the sink to clean off my shoe. When I left there were about four security guards standing around the smeared pool of blood waiting for an employee to arrive with a mop bucket. The funniest part was when I was cleaned up and walking out, and we ran into the gynecologist that was at the race when I went down. I said, "thanks for helping me out yesterday". To which he responded, "thanks for puking all over me…" Then looking down, "What did you do to your foot?"  It was not my weekend. [if you’re throwing up reading this, just be glad I didn’t have my camera, because I probably would have posted a picture. I’m not sure words can really describe how disgusting the scene was.]