stress fractures

so i'm having the few days wait to see if i've stress fractures in my (L) tib. i'm hoping not but i've never damaged my tibialis muscles before, can't remember specifically knocking it at the race on saturday and never had a pain like it. a week off the bike is bad enough but the next race is in doubt and, if the fracture materialises my big race in october is out the window. i plan to play a lot of piano and guitar in the meantime.

i watch vinokourov in the tour and try to imagine what it must be like to do all that preparation and lose everything in a split second. or, as with moreau today, a hesitation, some ill luck and see it slip away

G and W say that cycling is my substitute for drugs/self harm. maybe they both have a point. T worries that i'm not spending enough time painting or writing but these days each day on the bikeis one day closer to not being able to do the bike any more. that day, with luck is far in the distance, but now, more than ever before i know it's there. cycling seems more and more a metaphor for life. sometimes, as with last week's road cycle, even amongst beauty we bury ourselves in suffering and others, as with the last lap of the race, on the way back in despite knowing my leg was past it, the cycle was so sublime i was like surfing, in and out of the trees, no time, no thought, total being.