Motivation the highest after a crash?

I was curious to hear if anybody had similar feelings.

I was involved in a big crash. Tour of Somerville cat 2/3 race took out like 30-40 guys. My Garmin says 34mph to 0 in about 2 seconds. I went OTB, did a full front flip and landed on a bike, then got hit from behind. If you have a morbid curiosity, you can find videos on YouTube and Instagram. It was a pretty crazy crash. I DNF’d with some moderate injuries. No broken bones but I can’t fully close my left hand, and my right knee is swollen enough that I can’t turn the pedals (I tried already). Road rash over half my back. Sleeping has been terrible.

That said, I have this weird motivation, almost anger, to get back on the bike and race. Like, I haven’t felt this kind of drive to train and race in a while. It’s almost like I am mad at myself for crashing out, and I have a new fire lit inside of me to come back better to prove to myself that I’m better than that. I’m sore, I’m in pain everywhere, I can’t even pedal my bike. But that’s the only thing I want to do right now. I want to get back on and race again. Maybe I just thought that I’d be hesitant to race again. I know my wife is confused and maybe a bit scared that I want to race again. It’s almost like a video game where you die but it just makes you more determined to beat the game.

I guess it’s a good thing that instead of feeling hesitation to race again and feel uneasy about close quarters of the peloton, I’m just raring to go. Maybe it’s that I can’t physically ride my bike right now that makes me antsy to get back in saddle. Anybody else have this feeling after a crash? It was my first major crash so I guess I don’t know what’s normal.

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Similar, one of my best ever training blocks (volume and consistency) and some of my best numbers was the 3-4 months after getting back on the bike following a bad crash that had me totally off the bike for 3 weeks and then having to ease my way back into things quite slowly and carefully. Not sure how much was motivation to get back the fitness and how much was the fact that being forced to build up gradually meant that I had a really nice progression without the temptation to overdo things.

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