bottoms up.

so today i had an awesome ride.

this wednesday, the last bike race of the season, will be on the blue course so according to my rules (which i make up) i only had to ride the blue course.

that's because the rules for my ride are that if i'm able i have to ride one lap of the upcoming course and then either one of each of the other two, or two of one of them and then if i feel like it i can do other stuff.

and since the blue is my favorite and since the only one left is blue, i rode four laps of the blue, which is 20k, and farther than i have been able to go all at once in a couple of years, so i was feeling MIGHTY.

i even cleaned two laps of it, which means cleaning ridge run, which even in a good year i don't clean often. really, who am i kidding? in a good year most of the time i have to get off and walk ridge run.

(jargon alert: to clean a thing is to ride it without having to foot down or brace against trees.)

so i was feeling VERY MIGHTY.

and then i took a few laps around the pump park (that sounds like a boy thing, doesn't it?) and i took a couple of pix of that thing because that's really what i was going to tell you about today but then i went over to the other pump track and got to the far corner and then suddenly just fell over on the steepest part of the little embankment.

it was totally not a big deal, because i fall over a lot and i'm a very good roller. you start to figure out if you do it enough mostly how to keep your tangly bits from tangling and your fragile bits from breaking.

and i landed decently, too. not even hurty.

but then the terrible truth settled: some of my weight was resting on my bike.

which was on top of the rest of me.

...head down and with my legs sticking up in the air, unable to be brought down on account of my abs just aren't strong enough to lift my legs and unbend my body when i'm lying head down underneath a bicycle that i'm also holding down.

so for a couple of minutes i just stayed put, trying to figure out what parts ere going to have to get moved in order to get up.

to recap: i am lying on my back, with my head downhill on a little steep bank of loose dirt and my legs are hanging above my face and i don't have the core strength to bring them back where they belong without rolling to one side or the other which i can't do, because i am tangled up in a bicycle.

after a few minutes i figure that if i can untangle my right arm a little i can push the bike away from me, but this only causes the bike to start to move in a way that starts to pull parts of my body away from other parts in a fashion that is most unsatisfactory, so then i have to try to return the bike to its original stuck position so i don't go sliding the rest of the way down the dirt.

by this time it's a little uncomfortable.

but what am i thinking? i'm thinking i wonder if i can reach my camera...

turns out i can't.

and mark is in the parking lot, so i holler to ask him to come help me up, but it tuns out that that little corner of the track swallows up sound and even though i'm shouting pretty loud (and flailing like an overturned beetle) it does no good.

and then i realize that although i can't reach my camera, i CAN reach my phone, so i call the shop and ask shop girl to come help me up, which she does right quick.

but not before i ask her to take a picture of this.

you know.

because if you have to be rescued from a humiliating position from which you cannot move, it's best to have a picture of it.