Didn't Quite Make the Century Ride

Well, I almost made it, the Flat As A Pancake Century bike ride, that is. I did a relatively short training ride last night (20 miles) and was feeling fine. But about 1:30 this morning, I woke up, turned on my side, and had to grab the bedpost because of the pain on my left side.

I made it to work this morning, but had to give it up after an hour. Making a left turn in the car was agony. Getting out of the car was agony. Walking was okay for the moment, but sitting or standing was no fun. A member of my team came into my office to talk, and as I turned from my computer, it was all I could do to keep from yelling out loud.

The doctor checked me out, and even had a chest xray done. My wife kept glaring at me for not telling her about the pain in the first place. Diagnosis: something torn/strained/pinched with a muscle that wraps from my left shoulder blade around my left side. Treatment: Aleve, tylenol, heat, ice -- and no century ride. I had to listen to the doc on this; he's more of a biking fanatic than I am.

So instead of getting up before dawn tomorrow and going for a long, long ride with a group from the YMCA (wearing those great jerseys, too), I will be finishing Leif Enger's Peace Like a River and rereading an interview with author Dale Cramer in the latest edition of Christian Fiction Online Magazine. I love Cramer's writing. The interview is good, but the interviewer didn't ask half the questions I would have (okay, so they have space limitations). This edition of the publication also has an article about my online friend Mike Dellosso, author of Scream and The Hunted. Mike and I have never met face-to-face or even talked on the telephone, but we've become friends via the internet. His books scare me silly. He's working on a new one, tentatively entitled Darlington.

So no century ride tomorrow. Instead, I'll be reading and working on a work in progress, a novel I'm calling (for now) Plain Sam.