Oops I Did it Again (and I don't mean the song)

[mtbdarby]

I got out in the woods mt biking on Saturday with my boyfriend. It was our first off road ride together and I was hoping to pedal fast, no crashes, etc. We weren't 5 minutes into the ride when we had a steep shale descent. He was flying ahead of me and my helmet, which is too big and I forgot my bandana, was bouncing down into my eyes. I jerked my head back to move the helmet and my front wheel washed out on me - right at the bottom of the hill! I was down before I could blink. My right forearm took the brunt of the fall and is all road rash. My cheek bone and nose are bruised and rashed and so is my shoulder and my leg is badly bruised, welted and scraped up.

I was ready at that point to say I was done and lets go home, but I spit out the dirt and hopped back on. I rode the loop with him - all 13 miles of it! Renee, you would have LOVED it! It was all hill and descent - a perfect WORS race for you. Some of the uphills were so steep I had to walk up them. The scenery was nice, the bugs aweful, and my bf was great about it all (I think he felt bad about my crash anyway). He even kissed my boo-boos and told me they made me look cuter. All together: awwwweeeeee!

I have a couple of questions. Even though I didn't hit my helmet directly, do I still need to replace it? I do have a two strikes rule and since it's my second big crash, somethings going!! I also fell up one of the steep inclines because I couldn't get unclipped. I turned my heel twice to get unclipped and couldn't, and we even checked ahead of time to make sure they were as loose as they could be. I have new clips on my shoes, so any ideas what I'm doing wrong that I have a hard time getting unclipped?

I did fall to the right this time so my history of always falling to the left is gone. Of course, it didn't help my confidence one bit and my race is 5 days away. Just thinking about the race makes me want to throw up. Am I trying too hard or out of my league? I don't want to get so discouraged that I stop mountain biking, but I have to admit I'm very frustrated and discouraged right now. I WILL get back on and ride in the woods at least once before the race, and I will complete the race. But the rest of my training this week will be on the road. I'm just kind of down right now about it and could use some words of encouragement.

Oh, and thanks to this board, I didn't give up after my crash. On every hill I climbed I chanted "I LOVE hills, I'm good on hills", etc. It was kind of funny actually! Thanks for your kind words!