I blame it all on little Leo next door, that adorable 6-month-old bundle of germs. Bless him, he started me down this Road of Ailments two weeks ago at a dinner party, as he recovered with the greatest of ease from a bout of the stomach flu. As you might recall, I came down with the stomach flu shortly thereafter, only my recovery took a little longer than 12 hours. Such is the joy of aging, I suppose.
But, three days in, I’d recovered for the most part, and on the advice of both friends and trainers, I took the week off from tri workouts and began last week feeling rather smug about the whole thing. I got through almost an entire week – five of my six workouts, in fact! – before my latest little issue emerged.
I think it’s a sinus problem. That would make sense, after all, with the cherry blossoms coming on with a vengeance and with the temperatures swinging violently from 40 degrees to 70 to 50 and back again. My head is stuffed up, my ears are clogged, my throat stung all weekend (though thankfully is much better now!). Allergy season is here.
But last night, I ran a fever. Nothing crazy, mind you. Just a little chill-inducing heat wave. Today I have emerged a stronger person for the whole thing, but I’m still not healed.
I wonder what I ought to do.
On Thursday, I go to the doctor – it’s been scheduled for a while, just so I can get a new inhaler. So I suppose I’ll ask her what she thinks. But in the interim, I’ve stressed enough. Que sera, sera.
So, I will go to Florida with every intention of competing in Red Hills two weekends from now. I will continue to train as my health allows in preparation for such an event. But I will not stress about it. I’ve worried and fussed for two weeks now about the flu and now this, scared I’ll lose fitness or whatever. I’m done with all that now. Red Hills isn’t my A-race. It’s a warm-up, a tune-up. If I miss it, that’s OK. I can always volunteer that morning for the fun of it. :)
But I don’t plan on missing it. It’ll be a game-time decision, as my friend Jill says. But I’m through with worrying myself sick about it. That’s crazy. This is for fun. And I’ve gotta admit, I’ve been having a whole heck of a lot of fun with this training so far this season. A couple weeks of illness won’t change that one lick.
:)
