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Friday, April 3, 2015

Bike Racing in Botswana


Me in the orange with white helmet and Amo on my left
 
 Amo

BP

January 24th and 25th we had our first mt. bike race, which was also a 2 day duathlon.  The duathlon consisted of a 21k foot race in sand, over huge granite slabs and through river beds on Saturday and a 63K mt. bike on Sunday on the same trail. The mt. bike event was 21, 42, or 63K on the same trail on Sunday. We had 2 competitors doing the duathlon and 3 of us doing only the mt. bike race. What a fun event. I saw 2 Peace Corps (PC) staff members at the event, one of them had her bike stolen the week before, so she wasn’t racing. BP, one of the duathlon competitors, finished 3rd in the veteran’s class, 40 to 49, and I finished 3rd in the women’s 42K, unfortunately there wasn’t a masters category for women, though I may have been the only one in that class. Monica the Director of Programing at PC finished 3rd in the 21K.




 
Monica and me with our trophies
 
It was great to see so many kids out riding! And lots of girls!
During the race I was still hurting from an accident I had back in December where my shoulder and my neck were injured. Several days after the race I had some pretty sever symptoms that were similar to what I had in May last year when we discovered there were 2 herniated disks in my neck. The pain got so severe that I could only lie down to relieve it. I went to see a neurologist and he subscribed some muscle relaxers, but that did nothing. Next it was off to an orthopedic, who admitted me into the hospital, put me on several different medications, including 2 intervenes ones and traction for 6 days!
Learning more about Bots culture, the hard way!! 

The doctor gave me a lecture when I told him how they took care of me in the states and that they didn't put me in the hospital. He said I needed to trust him and he knows what the Peace Corps life style is like, so it's best to be in the hospital and that's the only way it will work. His solution, if I wasn’t out of pain in a couple of weeks, was surgery! I was in too much pain to argue at that time.

Bright, or Jerry, the Zimbabwe National Champion who rides with us some times, is going to train in the US with Mikes Bikes!! He will be in CA on the 18th of April. Thanks Mikes Bikes for making this happen!! So fun to bring people together and help them live their dreams. Bright will be in the US for 5 months.