A Crash Course - Matt Barger Finishes Race after Massive Crash

One of the greatest things about Monday is reading the race reports online and exchanging e-mails with my friends in triathlon about their weekend adventures. My good friend and business partner Matt Barger (a very fast triathlete with tremendous cycling expertiese who could easily complete the Tour de France) had quite a race. Here is his report...

"Lead story: Matt Barger falls for first time in a race (in fact, first time ever on a road bike). Despite falling in a two man collision on a tight curve and denting his helmet and breaking his glasses, Matt courageously (stupidly?) gets up from his fall, determines that his bike is still in one piece (thank god for titanium), and rides off.

Despite being stopped by an EMT in t2, who politely insists on cleaning up the blood on his face to examine his cuts, Matt rushes out onto the course and runs hard (although unfortunately not fast as his hip hurts from the fall), averaging somewhere around the high end of L3 for the run. In a fog, he passes another 50 year old with two miles to go who tells him he is in third in the age group.

There is no worse news because that means that he has to hold his painful pace for another 14 minutes. It all briefly seems worthwhile when he sees his name third on the preliminary results; unfortunately, Steven Chavez, who is also 50 and maybe weighs 150 pounds soaking wet, has been somehow erroneously listed as a Clydesdale and will ultimately be correctly listed, bumping me to fourth and out of the podium.

On the good news front, I had a decent swim in somewhat choppy conditions and did the bike in 1:05:54. That time compares to my previous best there of 1:03 (without a fall, a stop to put a chain back on, and another stop to check if my bike really was ok after the fall). The run was comparable at 45 minutes. Overall time of 2:23 was five minutes slower than my all time best there but maybe three minutes could be attributed to the fall.

I am quite sore today; head, ribs, hip, and finger are all bruised, and I have cuts or road rash on my head, elbow, hip and back. I feel like I have had the opposite of a chiropractic manipulation.

Aren’t triathlons great…"

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