Man, That Sucked!

Last week was, in a boring word, forgettable. I not only came down with strep throat, but then to add insult to injury had an allergic reaction to the medication! For four straight days I had no sleep, very little food, and almost no water. It left me cranky, irritable, and completely dehydrated. You know you're in trouble when your piss looks like Guiness...

But I am happy to report that I am on the other side of this little debacle. Although I'm still on drugs my throat has stopped seizing up and I am now able to eat, drink, AND sleep. Life be good.

On Saturday I even hit the streets for a little jog. It was pretty good, all things considered, although very short at a measly 5km. In a past life I would have tried running a heck of a lot more, but I am wiser now and won't try to "make up for lost time".

On Sunday it was time for a "long" run. Keeping it short I jogged through the first 11k nice and easy. Everything was going great until all that dehydration finally caught up to me and first my left calf, then my right one, started to tighten up. I stopped a few times to stretch it out, and then hobbled the rest of the way as gingerly as I could to complete the 16km run.

I'd finally managed to find a retailer in Canada that sold the Trigger Point "The Grid" and, having special ordered it, I had picked it up on Saturday. The timing could not have been better as I spent the rest of the day rolling my calves (or playing soccer with the littlest one in the park). I was nicely distracted from the pain by some great March Madness finishes (kudos to Butler for knocking off the first Number 1 seed this year!) and decent tennis at Indian Wells where the seemingly unbeatable Rafael Nadal went down to Novak Djokovic, who should really transfer his citizenship to Djibouti if you ask me.

Anyway, the week's worth of "running" was a paltry 21km, the lowest mark for me in a long long time. Now less than a week away from the Around the Bay 30k, which will most definitely be a training jog at best given all that's gone down, I am in full rehydration mode.

Happy Monday everyone! Hope your first full week of Spring goes well.

Missing In Action: Sick as a Dog

It hit me, I went running anyway, and then it decided that I was a dumbass and hit me harder. What is "it"?

Why, strep throat of course!

Last Saturday, as I scoured the city for a 10th Anniversary gift for my lovely wife with my older son in tow, I started feeling a bit of a tickle in the back of my throat. No big deal. I had gone on a 10km run that morning and things were fine as far as I was concerned.

Sunday morning came and it hurt to swallow. I didn't run in the morning because I felt like crap. Instead, I drove the boys across town to my Dad's, came home and then went out for a nice 16.5km run. There was little that was nice about it. In fact, it was crap. I felt like death in the second half and by the time I got home I knew I'd come down with something that I should not have been trying to run through. The whole "from the neck up" thing is total BS in the case of strep.

After a shower I lay down in bed and proceeded to occupy that space which exists somewhere between consciousness and deep sleep. I couldn't move, I felt cold and hot at the same time, and things were deteriorating rapidly as far as the throat was concerned. By that evening swallowing anything was pure agony.

So, on Monday morning, the wife and I went off to the Doctor's office to get a confirmation on what we already suspected was happening. Indeed, we both had strep throat, but the Doctor said that I won since mine was much more spectacular. Yay for me...

I was so glad to have Monica with me since I could not utter a word to the Doctor and managed a few whispers here and there. Those were mostly of the unhelpful joke variety like when Monica asked if she could go to work that day and the Doctor asked what she did for a living and I interjected that she was a "professional kisser". Hahaha. So stupid...

Anyway, I told that Doctor that I might be allergic to Penicillin given that I'd always been told I'd had a reaction to it back when I was a kid after my appendectomy. The Doctor muttered something about the next best alternative being sold out all over the place because so many people were getting hit with strep and so she prescribed something else. In my past experiences with strep once you get on the antibiotics your condition improves rapidly so I was hopeful that I would be back on the mend within the next 24hrs.

It was not to be. Although my throat slowly (painfully so) started feeling better I had an allergic reaction to the meds. This manifested itself in the form of an itchy rash (gross, I know) and a really weird thing: the palms of my hands and bottoms of my feet became super sensitive to heat! It was ridiculous!!! Taking a shower with barely lukewarm water felt like someone was pouring water straight out of a boiling hot kettle onto my hands!

On Wednesday it was back to the Doctor's to check and see if it was OK for me to keep taking the meds. The answer quickly came back "No!" and I am now on some super antibiotic that is reserved for patients with severe pneumonia! Let's hope that this stuff doesn't kill me...

Oh yeah, the other thing is that everything I put in my mouth tastes like chalk. Not pleasant at all, but at least my throat has opened up for the most part and swallowing now is just a mildly unpleasant experience, not the impossible task that I'd faced for a few days there.

And lastly, from Saturday night until Wednesday night I maybe got one hour of sleep in total. Every time I had to swallow the pain was so severe that I was never able to actually fall asleep. On top of that, as you can imagine, my diet suffered badly. I ate very little and that which I WAS able to get down was either in the form of chicken broth or ice cream. I also became very dehydrated. Not exactly the best way to prepare for a 30k race that is now only 9 days away!

I may not run the thing. Very disappointing...