Disaster at Ironman Lake Placid: Good Karma to Come

If you were following Amber's Ironman Lake Placid race on Sunday, you may have noticed that all of a sudden the tracker "wasn't working". Or that was what I thought when I checked in to see how she was doing. Come to find out it was a lot worse than that.

Amber had come into the race as an underdog despite having won it two years prior. She would have had to have a great race to compete against Heather Jackson but she was in that kind of shape that I thought she could. Either way it seemed clear that she'd be on the podium and likely to win some nice prize money.

That's what she gets for me counting her eggs before they were hatched. Instead she got no money and will likely be thousands of dollars in the arrears. So what happened?

Well what happened, from what I hear tell, is that about 80+ miles into the bike as she was closing in on the racers ahead of her, a ten year old girl run onto the bike course directly in front of her. Not having time to stop, Amber hit her full on flipping over her handlebars. Supposedly the crash was so bad that someone in the audience texted her coach thinking she was dead. An ambulance came and brought her to the ER where luckily it was discovered that her femur was not fracture just severely bruised. But all the tests, ambulance, and hospital stay are going to be a big hit on Amber's high-deductible insurance. Amber says she doesn't race for the money but for the love of sport but still...

Always smiles

There has been some people telling her to sue the family and/or the race, but I know she won't do that. Besides bad karma, she understands that accidents do happen and that she also wants this girl to be a life-long fan of triathlon and not create undue stress on the family. I wish there were more people who could do that. I'm not sure I could, but proud to have a friend that can.  So instead, she'll just go about the slow process of healing and will hopefully carry that good karma with her to the next race. Whenever that is. We will be watching and sending her all the good vibes she deserves.

Until next time,

Danny