Remember the Time…

“Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'” 
– Peter Maher, Canadian marathon runner

(maybe I should have been a wimp…)

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!

When I ran a really hilly, windy half marathon with a stomach bug and got dehydrated… and likely gave myself ischemic colitis?  Yeah, that totally sucked.  (Not the running, the getting sick part…just to clarify) It sucks even more now because yesterday I felt fine.  In fact, I felt great.  I felt so great I did two Insanity workouts and then spent a couple hours at the climbing gym where I was either climbing or belaying pretty much the entire time…

I did drink lots of water, but apparently not enough cause last last I woke up in pain… again.  It wasn’t as intense as Saturday, but it was enough to keep me up all night.  When I dragged myself in to work this morning, they pretty much turned me around and sent me home where I have been drinking fluids, fluids, and more fluids ever since.  

They were very kind to offer me some IV fluid before I left, but I told them I could manage to drink on my own.  So, now I’m home “sick”- except I feel more exhausted and frustrated than sick.  I did take a nap, which helped with the sleep deprivation, but I am super annoyed about not being able to work out. 😦  I am also not happy about missing work... but more the working out.  I have been having some sharp, crampy abdominal pain on and off…mostly after eating, so I have been pretty much trying to avoid food and just drink liquids instead.

Initially, I had hoped to use some vacation time at work today to get out in time for boot camp, but instead I will be home all day with no exercise allowed. Total bummer!

Boo!

I guess I should have listened better to my body on Saturday, but I honestly didn’t feel that bad.  I’ve been either getting or getting over something all winter, so I didn’t think much of the symptoms.  When I had all that pain while I was running, I really wasn’t sure what it was from.  I thought maybe all the uphill running was making my abs hurt and the nausea is not that unusual for me when I’m pushing hard.  When I finished and got really sick, I figured I was probably dehydrated and may have developed some ischemia.  However, I NEVER would have imagined I’d still be having issues 2 days later.

The only thing I can do now and take it easy and wait it out… and be smarter next time!  In the future I will definitely be doing a better job of hydrating myself before race days (instead of drinking caffeine all day to stay awake at work…).  Also, I think I’ll seriously consider bringing my hydration pack on any future half with only 3 water stations.  Aside from the Tough Mudder, I can’t ever remember being that thirsty on a run!  I would rather carry a little extra weight than run this risk of getting dehydrated again.

The good news is being home sick has given me a chance to catch up on my blogging, and blog reading!  Plus, I know know I’ll be back to kicking butt (my own that is) in no time.  I have a whole list of goals now and I am ready to get at them- body permitting.

I totally need to make one of these!!!

15 comments

  1. I have been reading with you for a little while. I am not an expert (yet) but I would say that you are showing symptoms of “overtraining”. Yes, as your body is telling you , you can get too much of a good thing. Talk to your trainer about it. No one would be doubting your heart or your passion, just the scientific wisdom in beating yourself up.

    1. Thanks for your concern/comment. 🙂 While I would tend to agree that I sometimes push my body harder than I should, in this specific instance I had not trained enough in terms of running. I only did a 6 and 10 mile run to prep which probably wasn’t adequate in hindsight (even if the 10 miler felt great). There were only three aid stations and I got seriously dehydrated. In the future I will do a better job of drinking more even if it means bringing my own. In terms of being sick on and off- everyone I work with has been sick. They have been out for weeks at a time, so in that sense I’m ahead of the game! I wouldn’t push myself this hard if I felt “beat up” doing it. The fact is I generally feel great after working out- that’s why I love it. When I trained for the marathon I built up to working out 4+ hrs a day (primarily running) so working out 2 (or 3 times) on a day off now just doesn’t seem like THAT much to me.

  2. Sorry to hear about this! Sometimes the hardest thing for us exercise enthusiasts to do, is to back off from working out. But give your body the rest it needs and you will bounce back before you know it!!!

    1. Thanks Betsy! I’m already feeling much better, but it’s SO HARD not to work out. This morning I woke up with an eye twitch which I pretty sure is a symptom of pent up lack of exercise frustration. lol

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s