From Cary...

Hi Gang, As you all know by now I seem to have fared the worst in the pile up that took down almost half of our women's cat 4A team. There had been some sketchy riding from the start but I think we, as a team, had been riding well up to the "incident". From what I could see all of us were up near the front, sticking pretty close together. I didn't see what happened. Ironically, we were on one of the most benign stretches of the road, a couple hundred meters beyond a very sandy 90degree turn that somehow the group successfully negotiated despite some horrific failures to hold lines by some of the (non DBC,of course) riders.The pack had straightened itself out and seemed to be rolling smoothly when suddenly the riders directly in front of me went down. With riders oneither side of me and less than a millisecond of time I had nowhere to go but into the pileup. I saw a flash of DBC orange in the pile as I did my best to avert my front wheel from impacting a downed body while trying toposition mine in best way to take the worst. I got my arms, head and neckout of the way but came down on my left shoulder. I'm not sure what I landed on, perhaps a bike, because there is no road rash. We quickly untangled ourselves and our bikes. Initial bodycheck...shoulder was aching but with endorphins coursing through my bloodstream didn't seem too bad. I was thinking, "get back on and get back init", then I looked down at my bike and saw my race was done. The seat bracket had broken and my seat was dangling from the seat post. In hindsight I think the broken seat was the great spirit protecting me from my own foolishness, making sure I could not get back on and try to continue. As the adrenalin and endorphins subsided it became increasingly clear I had sustained some significant damage to my shoulder. There is for sure a lowgrade AC separation. I can't tell yet if there is also a fracture. Yesterday I would have said yes, today I'm guardedly optimistic that it is all soft tissue trauma. I'll get it x-rayed tomorrow. Since triathlon is still my primary sport, I started the season with thepromise to myself: First crash and I'm out. But now I feel like I have unfinished business and I want to get back out and try again. When I broke my scapula and separated my AC joint last summer I was back on my bike onthe road in less than 10 days. This injury does not feel as extensive soI'm hoping to bounce back quickly...I'm a fast healer :-). Congrats to the rest of the team. From my perspective on the side of theroad I was able to observe that the front group had already popped asurprising number of riders a mere 8-ish miles into the race. It sounds like those who avoided the crash continued on for a great first race of theseason and those involved in the crash showed a lot of mettle and determination in their efforts to get back in the race. I'm honored to bepart of the group! Cheers, Cary