The butterfly effect is the concept that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science.[1] In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
I went down in a minor bike accident while ushering a young rider through his second real road bike ride. It wasn’t his fault really. It was windy and he was trying to hear instructions on where to turn next. He simply hit the brakes suddenly. I veered to miss hitting him but did not quite complete the maneuver and tumbled to the ground.
It’s all good now. Not the young rider’s fault, for sure. During my first year of riding I was similarly trying to follow instructions when I misunderstood directions on where to turn from a experienced rider and plowed right into him. The impact knocked him off the bike and he struck the ground with an elbow. The wound bled down his arm for ten miles until the blood coagulated at his wrist. Confusion on the bike can result in accidents. But that’s what they are: accidents.
It happens when we’re green.
The impact knocked the wind out of me. I sat there trying to catch my breath. It took thirty seconds to get it back together. For a few moments it was like being a prisoner in my own body.
Chrysalis of pain
Days later my chest is still sore. I really hit the handlebars hard. Same with my right hand. The actual night of the fall my right wrist hurt like crazy. I iced it for two hours. The wrist healed up enough to do rides of 40 and 65 miles on Saturday and Sunday. But it felt like I was emerging from a chrysalis of pain.
Look at those Tour riders getting into crashes all the time. All it takes is a touch of tires in the peloton and anywhere from two to fifty riders can wind up involved. We don’t think much of such falls, and the pros usually jump up and ride away. But they still hurt.
Slow or fast
Even experienced riders can fall badly at very slow speeds. But when you ramp up the pace to 35 or 40 miles an hour, things get hairy in a hurry. Watching Richie Porte crash on that mountain road during the Tour de France was agonizing. First his tire grabbed some soft gravel on the left side of the road. Then his bike pitched right and he cut on an angle taking out Dan Martin before slamming flat against the rock wall on the other side. I cannot imagine how much that hurt.
Or how long it must be taking Richie to recover. A crash at that speed, and of that magnitude, can disable a rider for some time. During the Tour we heard the story of Taylor Phinney who broke his leg badly in a crash with a guardrail. At one point they thought he might not even walk again. Yet he trained back into shape and led the inaugural stage of the Tour for many miles before the group passed him for the bunch sprint.
Snapping bones
I was fortunate that nothing actually broke the other day. One of my best friends snapped a finger last spring and his broken hand took months to heal. He was going only 10 mph when the surface of a bridge slickened by fog caused his tires to go out from beneath him. He could not shake hands for months.
My own right had was quite sore this weekend, a familiar feeling because I once broke the outer bone in my right hand years ago while coaching soccer. I was tending goal as the kids I coached took shots. I dove for a stop and slipped on wet grass. There was a loud snap from my hand, and a nurse mom took one look at the hand as it swelled and informed me, “It’s broken.”
Sure enough, it took six weeks to heal the hand with a clamp that held the bone in place. They call that injury the “wifebeater” break because it’s the spot where men engaged in domestic violence suffer well-deserved injury.
Shaking hands
It’s been 40+ plus years since I last punched someone with that hand. It happened while defending myself during a high school intramural basketball game. My violent impulse came about after a guy tossed me over his shoulder during a rebound battle. I jumped up and swung, and hit the guy flush in the face. It gave him a black eye. I saw that big fellow at a high school reunion two years ago. Thankfully he forgot my transgression.
So the human hand is a remarkable structure but not infallible. Even without a break, the resultant soreness from the crash last Thursday left my hand in a tender state. That led to a hard wince after shaking hands with a cyclist I met at Rocket Bicycle Studio. The guy was a physical specimen in that tanned, fit, muscular way only cyclists seem to achieve. On top of that he was a former professional polo player from the nation of Jorden. He gave off the vibe of an athlete through and through. And when he shook my hand after our conversation he gave a hard grip and I thought I was going to crap my pants. Instead I laughed, and explained why I almost jumped out of my skin. He said, “Ahhhh, I get it.”
Bad ideas
Every summer I get into some situation where something stupid takes over my brain and a crash takes place. Trying to jump a curb? Never a good idea. Riding with my head down on a bike trail? Crashed into a tree.
All I can say today is: “At least nothing’s broken.” However my ribs were also bruised and the muscles of my back so tight that I have had to sleep like a 2′ X 4″ tipped on its side.
Such is the price of a moment’s inattention. But we emerge from these experiences just a little wiser. The fact of the matter is that accidents happen even if you’re 100% focused and riding like the wind. It’s the product of chance and the Butterfly Effect.
Then Sunday morning we rose again to ride 65 miles in the flatlands of Illinois. Sue’s fifty-plus friends insisted that she stop at 52 miles in celebration of her 52nd birthday and hoist her bike over her head for doing a Birthday Ride. On the day, we averaged about 18.5 despite some fatigue in our legs from the hills the previous day, and that completed the Weekend of the Century. 105 miles. And it was good.
In May of this year, I married the woman I met through FitnessSingles.com. If that sounds a bit cold or commercial, be assured the story behind our relationship is much warmer.
On the second week that we were dating, I drove up early on a Saturday morning to watch her do the Racine Half-Ironman. She linked me up by phone with her sister Julie, a breezy counterpart for the day, and we shared histories while sitting in the sun and shade as Sue competed. Julie is a cancer survivor who also competes in triathlons. The two sisters would ultimately complete their first Ironman race together in Madison two years later.
What a perfect symbol for so many things in a relationship. There were weekends where I did not feel my best either. She is a strong rider and sometimes I could simply not keep up. That meant we needed to develop a fair and honest dialogue to cope with our ‘in the moment’ differences. That too is a symbol for how relationships grow and change.
I saw her in the same state for different reasons. During her Ironman year, things kept going wrong. Some were little. Some were big, including an incident in which an Escalade driver ignorantly parked herself in the middle of country road forcing Sue to ditch her prized Scott tri-bike to avoid crashing into the white hulk blocking her way. The bike was trashed due to fractured rear struts. That forced Sue to substitute bikes. One training ride in Madison turned into a desperate slog. But she got a new bike at virtually the last minute…
We’ve learned so much together and had so many moments of laughter and joy between. Our children have gotten to know each other and our families have blended into a support system all around. From loss has come gain. And from gain we draw hope.
In late summer when the sun goes low in the sky, the shadows thrown across the road by trees or other structures can produce a flicker that seems to reverberate deep inside your mind.
Perhaps you’ve seen video in which a computer screen is lit up in the background. The screen flickers and pulses. A computer screen is not what we think it is. It is granular. The light inside is all broken up.
In between, we run the race laid out for us. We try to run it well. That is true both literally and figuratively. Here is what the King James Version of 2 Timothy says about that: 
In the end it is that embrace of self that keeps faith intact throughout many flickering moments of doubt and joy and pain and happiness. Through those sequences one must simply reckon with the present. As we run or ride along, we have a chance to do just that. We learn to calm ours mind and soul with the thought that it is still good to be alive.
While doing my strength worth this morning in our home fitness room, I turned on the television to watch the morning session of Day 10 in the World Track and Field Championships. And there was a sport that I’d forgotten about. Racewalking. 
As a result, racewalkers move with exaggerated arm movements. They are the exact opposite of the Ninja runner that we witnessed in the women’s marathon. She ran with both arms straight down at her sides and very little hip movement at all.
There is no danger of running into one another during the event, because they’re not running. They’re walking fast. There is plenty of time to merge after water stops, and competitors still traveled in race packs that broke up like meteors re-entering the atmosphere after an hour or two.
I don’t exactly buy all that. When Bolt got the baton, he was already far behind. He’d gotten beat in the 100 meters earlier in the meet, and knew he had no chance of running down the athletes ahead of him. I think he “cramped” in order to avoid another disgrace. That may seem cruel and cynical, but I don’t blame the man. He likely regretted coming to the meet at all. He accomplished so much in so many amazing ways the last meet of his career was bound to be a letdown. 
So the fates are certainly fickle when it comes to who survives in this world. Most of us try to avoid ugly circumstance any way that we can. I personally grown more cautious on the roads the more I run and ride.
Which is why I flew to Norfolk, Virginia to meet up with a few of these friends to conduct a group birthday party. We all turned 60 this year. Rob and I actually share the same birthday, July 26. Paul celebrated his in June and Jeff Olson is going to catch up soon.
Time surely passes. We all are doing pretty well despite life’s shares of challenges in one form or another. The hugs are heartfelt and real. The spouses put up with our loud laughter and stories of stupid things we’d done. “You’re all lucky to be alive,” one of them said.
Paul and I got out for a run on Sunday morning because Saturday featured a thick and unrelenting rainstorm. We parked outside a beautiful state park and trotted into the bottomlands where cypress knees stuck up from the black water and moss hung from the trees. A mild ocean breeze caught the top of the pines in a whisper, and we ran along talking as longtime running buddies do. Nothing dramatic or deep. Just the movement of bodies and thoughts. We were teammates and we remain so.
After yesterday’s piece on the Japanese marathoner who runs with her arms held low and stiff by her sides, my wife dug into the topic a bit deeper to find out that her methods are called Ninja running. Following up on her claim, I found this interesting bit of 
We Run and Ride 