Breathing out the pain.

It was hard to breath. I'd been through this before.

Slid out in a criterium last year and landed hard on my hip/ass. Got really lucky and just tapped my chin on the curb. (Actually, I've been lucky all these years. Riding on a regular basis since 1991 and always managed to walk away with road rash. Damn So.Cal)

Anyway it seems that if you just focus on breathing the pain goes away in about a minute. You get up and walk away. Later, when you're washing off and the stinging sensation is almost intolerable you realize that all things are in their proper place and for this you are happy. That was the hard part. Laying there with my head against the curb realizing I was pretty messed up. Breathing helped though. But with every exhale I was reminded of the pain. It was kind of like: breath in, breath out "agggghhhhh", breath in, breath out "aggggghhhhh". You get the idea. I was hoping that I'd just some how breath my way out of this like I'd done before. Not sure if I was near the top end of this scale. Maybe around 8 in retrospect.

Well here we are 10.5 weeks later. Feels like things are better. Ribs and scapula are non issues. Waiting on the clavicle. C'mon body do yer thing. Just have to get the guys to make friends, take a hold of one another and not let go...for the rest of my living days.