“Oh yeah”, I thought, “Medical School!”

How I forgot is beyond me. Regardless, I made it to day 1 of orientation with no problem. Tomorrow I start my first day of classes at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. My life is about to see some wild changes in social behavior. This blog here is going to change too. I’m going to try to chronicle the ups and downs of school so as to represent what a slightly older gentlemen going to medical school might expect in the future.

I’ve never taken anatomy before. Tomorrow I get 6 hours of anatomy lecture. Apparently the learning curve is pretty steep at the beginning.

The white coat ceremony was on Friday – here is a photo my father snapped.

Here goes nothing…

Livable it was. Munich and Germany have something the United States does not. Age. And That simple fact makes everything about an American city and perhaps American culture different. I’ll write more about that when I get back though.

Like a moron I booked a train to Frankfurt while the German team was playing Slovakia. The previous 24 hours in Munich had quickly confirmed that the country had a singular focus: World Cup Füsball. Vehicles and buildings were adorned with German flags, and every time i stumbled across a park or open space in the city I found a giant screen for the public to get together and watch games. Every conversation I heard was about the cup (Germans use the phrase “world cup” rather than the German language counterpart). So that I missed the chance to watch the Germans huddled in a Munich beer garden was my first real critical mistake of this trip. Oh well.

The three hour train ride further confirmed that the Germans are football crazed. The game was broadcast on the train radio and literally every passenger plugged headphones to listen. That my german was not quite up to speed was irrelevant; I relied on mass facial expressions and group sighs to follow the game. Loss 1-0.

Florian picked me up and we quickly sped me off to a public viewing screen to catch the second half of the US versus Slovenia. Beer, foreign snacks, and great soccer bombarded my senses. Man was I glad to be in Germany. After the tie Florian and I drove to Klein Garau to meet up with Bettina, his wife and my friend. Over some local dark beers we loosely planned my three days with them. Everything revolved around the world cup. That night we drove to Meinz and strolled around town. Churches from the 1300’s, pedestrian walkways littered with beerhouses and cafes seemed to be the norm there. So too did soccer. We walked to the famous Rhein river. Cafe. Beer. Pretzels. Lawn chairs. Sunset. World Cup overlooking the water. Check. When it got too cold we walked 100 m over to a fine dining restaurant. Seats. Wine. Big screen. World Cup. Check.

So went my weekend and I loved every second. During the day we would watch soccer, explore, and eat; at night we watched soccer and drank. Florian and Bettina kept checking to see if I was OK with the level of football we were watching. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Here is how Saturday went down: we had Bread, cheese, and sausage for breakfast. We then drove to Heidlberg via the autobahn. We visited some friends of theirs and chatted about soccer. Then Florian and I hiked up to the castle in town which was overlooking the Rhein. Bettina hunted for a soccer viewing spot in the plaza. And that was it. By 3 pm it was world cup time and for us the rest of the world stopped. We watched the game in a cafe hovering over some recovery drinks overlooking the main plaza in Heidlberg. We zipped off to a small town to meet some of their friends – Roger, Nicole, and their son Johan. . Two beers later the next game started. At halftime we kicked around a soccer ball in the courtyard with Johan. More soccer, more beers, and then schnapps of Sam Buca. Whoa. 3 am finally hit and I couldn’t stay awake any longer – I was starting to think I wouldn’t make it az a German afterall.

Sunday we lounged and watched füsball all day. Bettina convinced me to blow up an air matress in front of their tv. And that is how I watched all three games. At one point Florian leaned over and asked, “Sausage?” I grabbed it and remarked, “I feel so German right now.” What a day. Caught the over night train to Munich. Plane to London. Plane to Cape Town.

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I wrote this on my phone, so please excuse any egregious errors. No computers in my life since HK.

Also, next time I do find a computer I will be removing my blog from facebook. They never include my photos or videos in my posts (+ their privacy controls suck) so goodbye FB. Add my blog to your RSS reader or simply check back on occasion. Thanks for understanding.

Similarities with the mainland are quite prounced as well, hence the “Diet China” label. Language, smells, density (people + spaces), and food were quite familiar despite the border crossing.

Hong Kong had diverse opportunities that, quite frankly, surprised me. On day two Anthony led us outside of the city for a hike in the mountains. What, mountains? Hiking? Dragonsback was grand in every way. Only photos could properly convey the beautiful beaches, oceans, and the exotic plant and wildlife that we saw. I’m writing this post on my phone in the airport sans Internet – so I’m not sure – but I think such photos can be found over on my photographicas page. Utter wilderness in such close proximity (read: no suburbs) was unexpected and so too was a mile long series of escalators with what seemed like hundreds of western style restaurants off of each side. We indulged in those restaurants with more enthusiasm and joy than I expected from myself. We had one Chinese meal in hong kong, our first, and it was also our last.

Hong Kong was expensive too. It hurt the pocketbooks, but worth every penny. The cab rides, beers, tram rides, hotels, and restaurants all provided top notch service. So too, did the people. And the land – magnificent views.

Sadly, it was clear to me that the serenity of this small village will soon disappear. As was clear with the rest of China – Ping’an is also on the verge of a building boom. With that will come throngs of Chinese tourists and the quick decline of beauty. Everywhere I have traveled here I have seen an overwhelming and consistent theme – zero concern for the environment. Walking the tight paths around the mountains in Ping’an, unsightly trash on the walkways and waterways was everywhere. Damn.

From a distance the village is a marvel, a spectacle to the eye. But on closer inspection it was obvious to me that the village is already falling apart at the seems. With the onslaught of more tourists that see the world as their waste bin coupled with villagers of the same mindset, Ping’an and the rice terraces are on the path to a disappointing future.

We met two Belgian friends in Ping’an; They convinces us to visit Yangshou – the second gem in Guangxi Province. As is characteristic with most europeans I have met while traveling, Tom and Tiné were in the middle of a grand adventure. After spending three months in Asia they were moving to New Zealand to try to start a new life.

Yangshou, a few hundred km south of Ping’an, was surrounded by limestone mountains. We stayed in the countryside for a few days. For the first time on our trip, we left the hustle and bustle of the city behind. We found no hawkers selling there wares where we stayed. Chickens and dogs ran freely in the streets several gorgeous mountains were only a few hundred meters away. We hiked, we biked, and we ate terrific food. On one hike we got caught in a torrential downpour. Instantly, a family of village people invited us into their concrete home. They offered us stools to sit on and tried to communicate with us. Utter failure on our part. I wanted to know Chinese so badly at that moment. These were the nicest, kindest, people in all of China. They were farmers, and they were poor. Without a second thought they cared for four foreign strangers and brought us into their home. They were brilliant, and so was Yangshou. This was the China I had been hoping to see. I had seen bits and pieces of such greatness throughout the last few weeks, but the outskirts of Yangshou had it all.

Today, we had barely turned the corner from the station when the bus stopped, popped open its doors and the bus filled up. These people clearly weren’t paying full price and some jackass was making money that the bus company wasn’t getting. Plus they were literally cramping my ride. Such an experience illustrates one of the themes that has loosely been developing as we get deeper into our trip. “Reform and Opening”, occuring circa 1980, has had all sorts of consequences – both good and bad. One that we often see is corruption. It exists, and it is out in the open. No chinese have complained about these extra stowaways, even though they had originally paid full price. Now that we’re 2/2 on this practice I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it on every bus here on out. Our original bus was 1 hour late because we dropped every one of the free riders off at their front door. 3 hours to 4 hours. Nice.

I have a habit of quickly adapting to the culture, where ever I am. In the south, at the end of day one you’ll detect a slight southern drawl when I’m speaking. Here in China, no one is shy. Yesterday on Mt. Huangshan (yes I know that is repetitive you chinese speakers) at least 100 people who snapped my photo without any sort of permission. Kids poop on the street. People step on your toes to get ahead of you in line. So today when my neighbor on the bus lit up his cigarette and smiled at me, I coughed into my hand, acted like I was choking and then leaned across him and opened his window. My other chinese neighbor laughed and then scolded him too. That is the culture here. Think about yourself first, others later, if at all. As such, he took his time but managed to blow most of the smoke out the window. He didn’t light up again.

Last night we discovered that we are in tea leaf country as we walked around Tankou last night. Tea shops littered the streets and we even had a little tea party at one. Our entire drive today was surrounded by tea bush(?) covered mountains. Simply beautiful. Horns in China are just a way of life and already we have adjusted to tuning out the noises. People honk so much that it means nothing. I didn’t realize that fully until our bus let out a constant stream of honks 500 m away from a dog in the middle of the road. The dog just casually looked at us then looked away. An elderly lady with shovel over her shoulder was standing on the yellow line across from her dog. She looked as us with an amused look on her face. She didn’t move, the dog didn’t move. Our bus slowed slightly then drove around the dog into the shoulder on our side of the road. Not one passenger glanced up. Not even Taylor, Jay, or Kristen.

Tonight at 11 pm we taking a 17 hour train ride to Guilin, Guangxi Province. Traveling has been my favorite part of this trip so far – whether by train, plane, taxi, scooter, or bus. I’ll let you know if that still stands tomorrow afternoon.

Trains are pretty cheap too and that is predominantly how we have been making our big moves around the country: Fuzhou to Hangzhou, Hangzhou to Shanghai, Shanghai to Hangzhou. Once we’re in a city we commute by taxi, train, foot, or bicycle. Whatever is easiest.

Bike borrowing in Hangzhou is free. You can imagine I dig that. We had to travel down to Xi Hu (West Lake), the central tourist district where we put a deposit down on the bikes and in return were given an RFID card that allowed us to check out bikes at any station in town. It turns out there are about 50,000 bikes distributed at stations on almost every block. Borrowing is free for the first hour and then every hour after that you are charged a nominal fee. So if you cruise to your destination, check in a bike, do your thing, check out a different bike, the cost is zero.

Pedaling away on one speed crusiers – thank goodness it is flat here – is how we rocked through Hangzhou for a few days. We cruised the circumference of West Lake (3 km in diameter), commuted back and forth between our friend Drue’s house and some good eateries and did everything else that we could. Upon leaving we got our deposit back, no problemo (well, except for the language barrier which i’ll detail in another post in the future).

Hangzhou is a hell of a lot nicer than Fuzhou. There are gardens everywhere, beautiful trees, less trash, less honking, more bikes, and the town is generally less dense. 6 million people live here, but you wouldn’t know it. Traffic moves along nicely, and the building are spread out just a bit. That gives the feeling of open space even though the buildings are 15-50 stories tall. Hangzhou has pockets of greenery that surprised me. We explored along a wetlands area in the middle of the city and expansive parkland around Xi Hu.

Some Photos:

But then we arrived in Fuzhou, Fujian, China (population: 7,000,000). Fuzhou is a site like no other. As far as I could tell the sidewalks in Fuzhou are just extra roads for which any sort of traffic can and will navigate. As we walked the avenue just outside of the main train station we started seeing some exceptions to the norm we had adjusted to in Taiwan. Scooters leapt onto the sidewalks, often heading against traffic straight at us. No big deal, they all seemed plenty competent as they honked incessantly, encouraging pedestrians to move before they ran them over. But then I saw my first car on the sidewalk and I started to consider that my personal safety might be in jeopardy. That thought was short lived however as I saw a bike roll off of the curb into oncoming traffic. To her credit, the lady kept her course on the white line in between two streams of cars that were releasing a chorus of honks. It was then that I realized that NO ONE was safe. Had I stayed any longer in Fuzhou, I have no doubts that a nervous twitch would be in my future.

Our cab ride to the south train station brought our 24 hours stint in Fuzhou to a fitting end. Our ride was twenty minutes and our cabbie had his hand on the horn for at least ten of them. He used sidewalks, curbs, shot across multiple lanes of traffic and had a feel for the road that I didn’t know was possible. But when he opened up the throttle on the empty road south of town, Jay commented, “I think I prefer the traffic”. Agreed. And the great thing about the drivers in Fuzhou – all of this is normal, no one makes funny facial expressions, when someone gets cut off they don’t yell, they expect it and they’ll do the same to you if they can.

500 km or so north east the world is more serene. With a population 1M less that Fuzhou, Hangzhou (population = 6,000,000) has the same amount of traffic but much more courtesy. They use fewer horns and have way more bikes. Yes people take advantage of any open space before them, but I have yet to see a car on the sidewalk or scooters running each other down. In fact, the driving is a bit more like Taiwan here.

That raises the question – Who cares? Right. The differences in driving are obvious differences between two Chinese cultures in relative close proximity. But what are the subtle differences and I am missing? Thousands, I’m sure. Not speaking the language puts me at a severe disadvantage for doing one of the things I love most – observing. Hell the standard way we order at a restaurant is by pointing to random chinese characters. We have never received the same thing twice. Oh well, I’m going to keep on trying. China is pretty rad, Mao and all.

After escaping Taipei via a three hour train ride we (Kristen, Taylor, Jay & I) landed in Hualien a town on the eastern coast of Taiwan. Five minutes after arriving we were already settling in nicely at the closest hotel to the train station. Ten minutes later, free of our packs, we went on a search for food. Fancy that, thirty meters around the corner we stumbled into a darling little place called Cafe Bosondo, a place we would fondly call home for the next two days. It was there we could get the usual – steamed dumplings and udon noodle soup – at all hours of the day.

On with the scooting though. Back in Taipei we had heard rumors that scooters could be rented for as little as NT$150 (USD$5) per day. The sign directly across the street from Cafe Bosondo confirmed that fact. We quickly learned, however, that that rate was only for individuals lucky enough to hold a Taiwanese license. Every rental shop we asked kept pointing us towards one shop that was only a few doors down from our hotel. We finally trotted back to the suggested shop. After only a few minutes of negotiating we had managed to sequester three scooters for mere NT$400 (USD$13) after only leaving Jay’s high school degree as collateral. That night, we spent a few hours dinking around before dark getting our feel for the devices, making sure we were prepared for the adventure we had planned for the next day: scootering Taroko Gorge National Park.

Having our own scooters granted us the abilty to explore more town with less effort. And so to start our third day in Asia we decided to stray from Cafe Bosondo. Twelve or so right turns later we landed at random joint with several locals inside. Perfect for breakfast. “Ni Hao” “hello” “Ni Hao” are the words we used to greet the people at the restaurant. And when I say restaurant, it’s not what you might think. The restaurants here are 90% open front shops with two or three tables and the kitchen right there in front of the tables. So at this place I knew we were in for it when Taylor ordered some omelet looking thing (picture menu) and the proprietor reached into a big freezer, unwrapped the item and slapped it on the grill. Same happened for the rest of our order. Oh well, you win some – you lose some. Luckily the whole meal only cost us NT$230 (USD%7).

After that we headed to Taroko Gorge. It was about 15 km away and we made good time as we cruised along the coast. Eventually we had had to turn west into the mountains where we followed a winding mountain road for a few hours (have no fear mother, we proceeded with extreme caution). We ran into numerous buddhist temples, countless breathtaking views, and tons and tons of cyclists. It was a ride I would have loved to do on my bicycl with brother at my side. Needless to say, the day was a rocking good time, full of laughs, new experiences, and dumplings. Somehow, I don’t think the dumplings will ever get old.

Of course you can see them all over on my photo page: http://ryanroth.net/photos.php.

Kristen and I took different flights and arrived one hour apart. Public transport (bus & train) delivered us to our hostel by 8 am; the train was more crowded than I have ever seen before.

Some other first impressions from a two hour walk. 1%-2% of people wear flu masks. Residents don’t say hello – well, at least not yet. Food is cheap. We had great dumplings for < $ 0.30 USD. Not as many cyclists within the city as I expected, and far more motor bikes than I anticipated.

Another five hour hike around the city helped settle some of my initial thoughts. But first, it is hot here! Between 29 & 33 degrees Celsius all day. Humid too – as we passes the ministry of communications and weather we saw an electronic sign with Chinese characters and “66%”. I can only assume that it was referring to the humidity.

Just like in the states – most people are nice here, a few aren’t. We got some dirty looks from the fashion police while on the train; everyone else treated us kindly, tolerating our hideous attempts at Chinese.

Peace park was awesome! The trees, the water, the tai chi were all magnificent. Tomorrow we’re heading for the coast!

Also, I wonder if I’m going to be sitting next to this girl who is rocking Chinese sitcoms on full speaker phone on my flight. That would be comical/sad/wondrous amongst other things.

I’ll be posting from the far east in a few hours. Until then. Ciao.

Link to the video

In other news, I have been fortunate enough have more than one school accept me for next year. As soon as I decide, I’ll write a few posts with what has transpired over the last few months. I hope all is well with you guys out there. Cheers, Ryan.

But the reason for this here post is simple. Push America, the organization I have been volunteering with since the year 2000 is in the midst of a no holds barred Facebook shootout. If they get enough votes to win the Chase Community Giving challenge they’ll win $1,000,000, which as you can imagine, will help them serve people with disabilities that much better. Currently their operating budget is somewhere around $1.5 million. Take that to $2.5 million and the sky is the limit.

So if you have a FB account, please click here and vote for Push America. Your vote will help us make a world of difference.  (http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/227903)

If you don’t have a Facebook account. Please, please, please…

1.)   Set up a new account www.facebook.com
2.)   Search “Chase Community Giving” and become a fan
3.)   Vote for Push America!

More soon.

I just got back from a talk given by Hank Brown (former CU President, and former Colorado Senator) on the topic of healthcare reform in the United States. The talk was presented by the Student Association for Pre-Health Professionals (SAPP) at CU. Thirty or so “students” attended. I ended up leaving with steam pouring out of my ears.

Since Mr. Brown seems to be well respected in the CU community, and considering the appointments he has had both at CU and the state government, I expected tonights talk to reveal some downright novel thinking on a tough subject. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my expectations.

To his credit, Mr. Brown did a halfway decent job of summing up the issues with the American healthcare system in just under thirty minutes. That in and of itself is a tough as nails task, and he attempted it. He described the amount of uninsured in the US as somewhere between 10 and 50 million. Then he broke that number into thirds attempting to explain the different demographics of each third. By then you can already imagine I was having problems with his statistics but I was willing to let these slide provided we got to the meat of the topic – how to solve the problems that plague the American healthcare system.

Next he tried to sum up the “bill” that will soon be voted on in Congress. Of course those of you in touch with this healthcare debacle know that there isn’t a single bill yet, there are still 3-4 that are being worked on – but Mr. Brown forgot to mention that. Instead, he focused right in on the so called “public option”. Immediately he equated the public option to a single payer system citing the fact that it would likely run the private insurance out of business.  Again, he forgot to mention that under the current writing in the Senate – the public option will only be available to people whose employers don’t offer healthcare. So as of now there really is NOT a direct line to a single payer system as he let the audience believe.

Somewhere down the line he equated a single payer healthcare system to socialism. I almost fell out of my seat. I am no expert, but I’m pretty sure if the US went to a single payer system it wouldn’t mean that capitalism is canceled. Regardless, he went on to talk about the differences between east and west Germany, Hungary and Austria, and Cuba before and after communism (apparently he was equating socialism to communism too). Mr. Brown claimed that someone in England might have to wait months for a surgery they need now; he also stated that on the whole Europeans were less healthy than Americans.  Now if this had been the right time and place I would have happily offered to debate him – but it was neither the right time or place. During the one instance when I couldn’t hold back any longer I spoke up and told him he was flat wrong about the majority of health insurance companies being non-profit. He was startled but seemed to know he had no solid ground to stand on.

When I asked him why no one in Congress had the guts to introduce something novel, something new to the US – he avoided an answer. There is plenty of good precedent out there – look at Hawaii with mandated employee offered insurance if you work 20 hours or more. Or look at Maryland who has uniform pricing, or Switzerland that has 100% mandated private insurance with subsidies (think bye bye medicare), or England with their NHS totally government healthcare. All of these systems produce healthier and happier people. But he just sidestepped my question and revisited why he thinks we should be naysayers of the public option. Blah.

My real problem with tonights talk has to do with what wasn’t said. IF Mr. Brown had introduced himself as a career Republican perhaps the students in the audience would have taken tonights talk with a grain of salt. But from the questions that were being asked I’m pretty sure they were looking at Mr. Brown as if he was a non-partisan healthcare expert.

Overall tonight really disappointed me. I am disappointed that pseudo-facts can be used with such ease when in a setting like tonight there are few checks on their validity. And I am disappointed that a person that spreads such misinformation has held a public office and been president of the University of Colorado. If, as I witnessed tonight, the character of our elected officials is comprised primarily of ignorance – then America is in more trouble than I had originally thought.

So what have I been doing since my return? Exploring the internets, writing essays, looking for employment, mountain running, resume editing, reading, talking to schools, and sleeping. I’ve been eagerly consuming any sort of medical reading I can get my hands on. Most of the stuff I find interesting I bookmark over on my delicious page. One article of particle interest to me was an Esquire piece on Dr. Warren Hern. He’s the sole proprietor at the Boulder Abortion Clinic. Oh, and an Op-Ed by Bill Maher on the demise of our dear America.

Anyhow, for those of you who don’t know – Good is by far my favorite magazine. They just released a video today that made me melt in my chair a bit. Enjoy:

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn

And if that made you feel good. Try this one on for size:

That’s me wringing out my cycling shorts after washing them in Lake Kluane in the Yukon Territory. The lake reminded Alex of the Swiss Alps. Incredible they were. We’ll try to log in as much as possible with good photos and stories along the way. To follow the blog go to www.PedalingForPeople.org/blog/.

I hope all is well with you!

“Yeah, I can beat most people in Boulder up a mountain”, I said.

Bob, Kyle’s boss, took that as a challenge — but he didn’t say anything immediately. A few days later Kyle came home and stated that Bob wanted to race me. Long story short, I tagged along on one of their rides to better gauge his skills as a cyclist. After a jaunt up Flagstaff, I walked away feeling like I had the upper hand should a race ever materialize.

Later that week, Alex and I met Kyle over at Avery Brewing company for a little cerveza and Bob just so happened to be there. We got to talking about athletics and he admitted that I had him beat on a bike ride up a mountain. But…. Then he had the audacity to say “I could kick your ass any time in a trail running race”.

Those of you who know me can imagine any number of things that were running through my head at that point — they are all probably accurate. I replied with a few sly comments to which each time he came back way over the top.

RACE ON.

I called him a few nights later and challenged him to a mountain duathalon of sorts. First would be a road cycling race up the Flagstaff Mountain road: from the base of the mountain (by the brick wall turn) to where the amphitheater trailhead hits the road. Then we’d cruise down, catch our breath, and change into running gear. Second, we’d race up the amphitheater trail, running.

Well compared to the race against the twelve year old where I lost handily – this was a friggin’ blowout.

Bike Race – Ryan = 19:16, Bob = 25:00ish
Trail Race – Ryan = 20:02, Bob = 25:00ish

Above: At the base of flagstaff I had just made the pass. That’s Kyle back around the corner.

Above: nearing the top – no one in sight.

Bob is planning the re-match on a less mountainous course. We’ll see how that goes.

In other news – I just launched v1 of www.FrontRangeEndo.com, my site for my fathers business. He goes by such names as Dr. William Roth, Papa, and Williberto. But I think he’d answer to things like Endodontics maestro or Root Canal Master. Just some thoughts. If you have any feedback on the visual aspects of www.FrontRangeEndo.com I’d really appreciate it. I’m certainly no design wiz. And oh yeah – I’m colorblind – so if you see some colors that aren’t mixing well, please please let me know!

Then, tonight, there was a show on the Discovery channel about Yellowstone. A pack (right word?) of otters submarined through a field of snow on their way to the river. Quite clearly they were hungry and seeking their most favorite of traditional otter meals; the spanish call it pescado. Elegant to say the least.

Then I saw this photo as a I was perusing the internets:

I decided to make them my favorites. And that’s that.

As I turned to my right a few seconds later to follow some costumed creature down the street, I realized what that blur had been. An older man had collapsed while running – he was perhaps 15 feet from me, but hundreds of runners separated us. Bystanders on the other side of the street had already rushed to the man’s side. I was one week off of my CPR refresher course and wondering if the lady that was pumping his chest was doing it correctly. Hell, had she even checked to see if the man was breathing? It was pretty unclear with hoards of runners traveling between us. In fact the whole scene was pretty chaotic as several people stopped to try to help. There were spurts of what resembled CPR and other spurts that just seemed like pure confusion. The band stopped perhaps two minutes after the collapse and called for help on their loudspeakers. A bike medic rolled up and took control one minute later and an ambulance a minute after that. The race volunteers actually blocked the runners bringing them to a standstill (which I’m sure caught some runners off guard) as the ambulance screamed to our location.

Just before the ambulance arrived, Kristen #2 came running by in her costume oblivious to the events just across the street. She was having so much fun, laughing and tossing out reeses pieces to anyone and everyone, screaming about a leprechaun that was chasing her  (a guy named Chris). The situation was startling and I was held aback by the stark dichotomy of life that I was witnessing. Just before me was my vibrant young friend full of laughter and life and a few feet beyond her a man was struggling to hold onto his life.

Eventually, while the medics were still performing CPR, they loaded the man in the ambulance, blocked the race again, and sent him to the hospital just down the road.  The race went on, but the fun was over for us. We hopped back on our bikes – still thunderstruck by the events that had just transpired.

Following are a few pictures I snapped prior to the debacle, the rest are located over here.

The scene: