It started at about 3 o'clock Monday afternoon, just as I was finishing my post on IT band syndrome. My stomach just didn't feel right. The discomfort got worse and worse, until I finally felt the urge to...
...I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, over the next 24 hours, I became very familiar with the interior of my bathroom. There was no question I wouldn't be running on Tuesday morning: Walking or even sitting upright in a chair was nearly impossible. But almost as soon as my illness began, I could tell I would probably recover quickly. At 7 p.m. on Monday, I couldn't imagine eating anything. By 7 p.m. Tuesday I was consuming a huge plate of rice. When my alarm went off at 5:40 this morning I was a little woozy, but I actually felt pretty good.
I decided to do an abbreviated version of the run I had planned for the day. I was planning on 9 miles: Running into town, meeting the group for the DART loop, then running back home. Instead, I drove into town, taking 2.6 miles off the run.
Chad and Rodney were there. Chad was feeling under the weather too, so we thought we might take it a little easy. Then we cranked out a 7:47 first mile. Maybe not. The next three miles were 8:00, 7:47, and 8:05, so we weren't going to break any records, but we were moving along at a good clip. Mile 5, however, always seems to determine how well DART loop is going, and today was no exception: 8:20. I picked up the pace a bit on Mile 6 and and the final .3 miles: 7:53 and 7:33, but still, the overall pace of 7:57 was nothing to write home about.
It's amazing how quickly we can be humbled by an illness. If I have a similar stomach bug on the day of the Big Sur Marathon, I simply won't be able to compete, even if I put in two and a half months of solid training between now and then. I'll do everything I can to stay healthy for the race, but there are some things I just can't control. Such is our tenuous condition.
No comments:
Post a Comment