I get sick easy. Not flu sick, just sinus and ear infection sick. It happens when the seasons change, when I travel, when I swim, when I lose weight…it seems my upper respiratory and sinus/ear cavities are simply allergic to change. This makes it very tough to train consistently, as I can guarantee on being down for nearly a week every 5-8 weeks. Lifestyle and diet changes haven’t helped, as I get sick just as often now as when I smoked a pack a day. These infections were supposed to lessen as I grew up, but I can attest that every year of my 31 years has been a struggle.
Yes, that’s 31 years of nearly four ear/sinus infections a year. I suppose I could live in a bubble to thwart it, but that seems really boring. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because I got sick last week. Painful sinus infection enough to prevent me from training and even staying awake all day starting Tuesday morning up until Saturday afternoon. I didn’t stretch, run or do anything physically I didn’t have to. My body was pretty sore after lifting on Monday, which made the first part of the week all the more tough. At first I thought the body aches were from the flu until I remembered I hadn’t lifted in a while either…ugh.
So I took nearly six days off, but since I fancy myself a bad ass, I couldn’t skip my long run on Sunday night for fear I’d fall too far behind in my training (six weeks until my half marathon!). So last night, after a scrumptious meal of tacos, I headed out for a 6.2 mile run, ‘though my training schedule said to race. I was going to take it easy. Here’s how that worked out:
Mile 1
Blistering first mile. Something like 7:30 pace. Seeing as how I was so rested, I figured my body just wanted to go go go and I wasn’t about to rein it in. I had also worn my Sprints on a long run for the first time since my last half marathon in an attempt to get me to a) slow down and b) concentrate heavily on form.
Mile 2
F*** yeah! Slowed down a little bit to an 8:00/mile pace, but I was still trucking along. My legs felt great, my breathing was perfect and I had thoughts of breaking my 9:00/mile distance record I had set two weeks previous. I kept checking my time, trying to figure out when to turn around (when it said 3.1, dumbass) along Central.
Mile 3
I’m not even halfway!? What the hell, man? I’m FLYING NOW. Seriously, I was going good. At this point, I noticed my vision was a little fuzzy when I looked at my Garmin watch, but I figured that was because I was just amped up to run for the first time in a while. I also went a little off course for a bit here, in hopes I would make my return trip a little quicker. Instead of just north-south, I did a short west-north-east-south loop and ate up some more miles.
Mile 4
FINALLY. On my way back now. My stomach was rumbling and I knew I’d have to make a pit stop. Seeing as how restaurants don’t allow shirtless, sweaty guys inside to use their facilities, but hotels either don’t have a problem, or they’re a little too scared to stop me. I loped in to a nice place, sprinted to the water fountain, used the bathroom and headed back out.
Mile 5
Something felt wrong now. Ever since I stopped at the hotel, my knee had hurt, I was cold and I noticed I wasn’t sweating as much. Seeing as how it was a fairly cool night (well, in the 80s), I assumed I was just cold. I WAS running shirtless and stopping for water every half mile, so it made sense. And then the nausea hit. I had never thrown up while running before, only in basketball practice. Thinking I just hadn’t waited long enough to run after eating, I figured a quick upchuck and I’d feel better, and be on my way to finishing. I checked my time, realized it was getting REALLY hard to see, paused it, did my business next to a tree along Central, tried to wipe and spit it off, and kept going.
Mile 6
Holy motherf***ing hell. I hurt. My knee hurt, my feet were developing blisters all over and my HEELS were hitting the ground. Something was seriously, seriously wrong. Why was I so tired? Why was my form so bad? I ran by a few people on their nightly walks, they all gave me a cursory “keep it up!”, so I assumed I looked okay. Looking back, I realized I was dehydrated, starting to hallucinate a bit and should have stopped right then and there. But I didn’t have hindsight to guide me at that time, so I continued on, even speeding up as I assume the faster I got home, the better I would feel. Oh, and to save time, I skipped the water fountains for the last 1.5 miles. Dumb.
Mile 6.1
I can almost see my house! Not sure I’m going to make it, though. Oh god how I wish Katie made good on her threat to come searching for me. I was very worried I wasn’t going to make it, but my mind and body seemed to be in fast forward, even though my feet were sloppily being dragged along. I could FEEL the blister formed on my toes.
Mile 6.2
Made it to my street! If I die, at least someone will see me! I considered stopping next to a guy and girl walking from the gym and asking them for help, but realized I was a slobbery, panting, hallucinating, puking, crazy mess that would best be avoided. I made it to the stairs, up them and into my place.
Katie helped me from then on, getting me water, making me calm down as every time I spoke I started hyperventilating and eventually making me lay down with ice until my breathing returned to normal. I had a few huge glasses of water, eventually took a shower and had crazy dreams about being in a college class on an island where I couldn’t understand the text and started crying because I felt powerless against being stupid. What a weird day.
(I think I’m still a little weirded out. Not sure what caused it, but if my writing seems a little frantic, that’s because it is. It feels like I overdosed on speed, but I haven’t taken my ADHD pills for months. So, so weird.)
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