Health = Wonderful

What a long weekend! Unfortunately no training took place, but I had a physical feat just as tough and painful--fighting a stomach virus. Besides missing seeing my sister, brother-in-law and nieces, I felt like I had been hit with a bulldozer. I was reduced to crawling (walking made me nauseated), sprawling about my apartment, drinking ginger ale and eating ice chips.

After the first round (around 4 a.m. on Saturday morning) I thought, "I sure hope this passes before my run this morning!" Ha! Yah, right! It quickly became evident that I wasn't going anywhere. Matt brought me some Pepto-Bismol caplets with the instructions, "My mom said to take these until your ears ring." The instructions should have read, "Take until it makes you sick, then drink ginger ale and eat cubes of ice." The second set of instructions is what worked for me. So anyway, I didn't leave my apartment from Friday night until Monday night. I couldn't even stand on Saturday, and Sunday was just painful and achey. Yesterday I did dishes for about 10 minutes and had to take a 2.5-hour nap to recover.

But the thing is, as bad as I felt, I couldn't help but think, "At least this is temporary. At least after this passes I will be healthy again and able to do the things I want to do and enjoy life." It made me very grateful for my health and for the fact that I don't have to endure painful treatments for cancer or fight for my health daily.

My team coach said to take it easy this week and not try to run until Thursday. I will be on lower mileage next week, but hopefully I will be able to pick it up later. Recovering fully and taking it slow will hopefully result in fewer setbacks later on. The half marathon is 4 months from tomorrow!

Finally, I must give kudos to Matt. He was a wonderful caregiver all weekend, and he never even bitched about it (although there were a few times I could tell he was getting annoyed!).