The folks at the ER on Tuesday night said that I would get progressively sore over the next three days. Alarm bells were ringing pretty loud at that as I was in some pretty bad pain. I'd say those projections were pretty accurate. However, as I'm sure you are aware, there are ways to contort the body or little tricks you learn that don't hurt as much as the usual approach to things. For example, I've found that by holding my left arm close to my side and doing most things right handed has helped a little bit. Also, not laughing seems to help some too but as you probably can guess, that's always difficult for me. Driving was hard today, but really only getting in and out of the car. The driving part was okay. My wife expressed some concerns when I told her about my designs on coming into the rockpile today. When I explained that my only concern about driving stemmed from the fact that I don't think I can get out of the car very quickly if it catches on fire, she readily handed over the keys. "I'm just not that concerned with that situation," she said. Her husband burning to death apparently not high on her list of fears. At this point, it's the ribs that hurt the most. I was having a knee issue after Candlestick, but I'm kind of laughing at that injury now.

I'm trying to go without the Vicodin today. One of the best things about the "not bike racing season" is being able to drink beer. Apparently the Vicodin has a warning which my wife has read that forbids drinking alcohol. So now I'm going cold turkey and I'm still in the pain crescendo (hey fancy music term hopefully used correctly-if a crescendo can go up or down, I mean the up one). It's manageable, but I've got one of those little buggers with me today just in case I go crazy. Up until last night I was popping one every four hours. I can't decide if they work for me or not, so what the hell, why take it at all? Can't figure out how anyone could get addicted to them, but that's just me talking. Anyway, hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast

p.s. Good blog coming tomorrow regarding the Griffociraptor and his wind chime idea. Truth be told, this entry would have been done on Wednesday as I had some good material worked out during my last ride. Alas, the crash monkeys had different designs for me this week.