healthygirl's Blog

So my first marathon in a year was this weekend...in short, it was a race gone bad.

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A few days before I started feeling vaguely fluish, but kept pushing the thought aside. If I don't think it, it can't happen, right? So after a couple of days of sore eyes, sore skin, and drenching night sweats, I stupidly headed out Sunday morning for the 8 am start. I was all excited with my new Garmin 305 strapped to my arm. The first hour was actually pretty good! I was right on pace, but then things went down hill quickly. My Garmin was set to "notify" me with this annoying sound when my pace slowed beyond a certain level I had set, so the stupid thing was buzzing every 30 seconds and I couldn't figure out how to turn the feature off. My joints hurt everywhere, every shotblok I ate I was sure was coming right back up, and I just felt horrible. I didn't mind the "good job, keep going" comments from racers passing me, in fact I do the same thing, but I did mind the people that either put their hand on my back and pushed me faster telling me I could do it (yes there were a few runners that did that and it isn't like I ever saw them in my life before) and the people who said, "come on, run" when I was walking....I felt like saying some really nasty things back. I should have turned off at the 1/2 Marathon point, but no, kept going. The race was on a trail system which was lovely and close to nature, but in cases too close....there were sections where the smell of stagnant pond water and goose poop was almost too much to handle. Finally at 26.5 km I met up with my in-laws on route to cheer me on, so I hopped in their car with no shame and said I'm done, take me home. Later that day my lymph nodes in my neck swelled up and this morning I woke up with a rash. Off I went to emergency thinking measles, but the doctor says they are pretty sure I have a virus called pityriasis rosea. Bad, rotten timing to come down with a virus right before my marathon.

I am going to take it easy for a few days, the virus is not highly contagious, but my job is pretty active. I'll have to be back at it soon, but will try to keep the intensity down a notch. Apparently the lovely rash I have can last 6 - 12 weeks but I think my rotton feeling flu symptoms won't last that long.

So that is the story of this race. We'll see how the next one goes.