spring, sprang, sprung

things are getting green again here in austin. just had my coffee in the green house and it was almost too hot in there already at 10am.

i am healing up pretty well from my accident and feel almost back to 1oo percent. in order to heal up i had to take it much easier on myself this week than i had planned. tuesday night jiu-jitsu was great but when the competition class started and i got slammed into the ground a few times as we worked on takedowns it became clear to me pretty quickly that i had to call it a night. my lower back was still not ready for getting thrown that hard, however, everyday i am feeling better. next tuesday i think i will be able to go full speed again.

one of the hardest parts of training for any sport is knowing when you need to stop training for a few days. no matter what the sport is that we are focused on there is inevitably an attitude that you need to "tough it out" or "not give up" when you feel hurt. sometimes toughing it out is appropriate, and sometimes it can cause you to become sidelined with a far worse injury.

I have been really getting focused on trying to learn and understand more jiu-jitsu, and it is frustrating to take days off and sit at home when you want to train. but, healing up and avoiding injury is top priority, especially when your main mode of transportation is your bicycle.

so, while sitting around the house this week i had the car towed into the shop for repair. it will be running again on monday giving me the occasional 4 wheel option. i made some progress with the insurance company of the women who smashed me, and i am hoping to get a free doctors visit out of the situation so i can be sure i am healing properly.

my iro (fixed gear commuter) really proved itself to be far stronger than i had expected. the crash was pretty serious and the only damage was to my handlebars, they are now toast, and will be replaced soon. riding a bike with crooked handlebars is not fun or safe.

jay carr has officially made plans to get down here in april which is awesome. mr. st. germain shouldn't be too far behind. all i have to do is convince everyone who visits to stay.

as for bike racing this year, i have not been doing any kind of training at all focusing on the two wheeling. i am sure i will want to make a visit to the weekly criterium series at some point, but for now thats all i have on the radar.

there is a NAGA tournament in may and i am going to see if i can get enough training in to feel ready to compete.

in fact it is time to go train right now.