Racing Sick

So Saturday morning I woke up with a pretty decent sore throat.  I had no other symptoms, but it was a pretty miserable feeling not being able to swallow even my own saliva.  Laura and I spent the day down Plymouth at my families annual cookout, and to be honest, my throat didn't bother me too much (as I recall) throughout the day.  But later that night, when we went home, I had a real tough time.  I packed for my race the next morning, and just tried to relax a bit.

I signed up for this race because I hadn't raced since the beginning of June, and I wasn't signed up for another race until halfway through August, and I was itching for competition.  My previous races were both of the 70.3 distance, and I felt like I needed to get my fast twitch muscles moving in the right direction.  Being down in Plymouth on Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to look for a race down in the area Sunday, so we could spend the night and do the race real quick.  The Falmouth Sprint looked like a good option, but when I went to sign up, it was already sold out.  Bummer!  So basically the only option I had was the Mass State Triathlon all the way out in Winchendon.  Not the ideal place travel wise, but doable from our apartment in Waltham (about an hour drive).

I didn't sleep more than 30 minutes at any interval that night.  I don't know if it were nerves, or if I was really starting to develop an illness, but I tossed and turned all through the night that night, and it really made for an uncomfortable morning before the race.  I wasn't 100%, but I felt like I could fight through it, as it was only a sprint distance, and I had my base way beyond what this race would need.

The race started out great. I swam with the front of my wave for awhile, finishing several minutes faster than I told Laura to expect, and way faster than I had ever swam before.  The bike started out great for me, I was passing people the first few miles, while getting passed by no one, and I felt like I was getting all loose and rhythmic.  The middle section had a mile long climb, which was difficult, but I just took it all in stride, didn't kill myself, didn't dilly-dally.  Then the run came, and my not-at-100% really started coming home.  I cruised out of transition, passing 3 people rather quickly, and then my lungs started tightening up, and not allowing me to take deep breathes without some needle-like sensations.  I pushed through it, it was only a 5k, but I did run quite a bit slower than I expected to.  After the race, I felt okay.

Later that day, we were relaxing with friends, and I felt like I was getting worse and worse every passing minute.  My nose was getting more and more congested.  The lungs felt like there were filled with nails, and the cough.  Miserable.

The next morning, I woke up, and I got no breaks.  I felt 10x worse than I did when I went to bed (even though I took NyQuil), and I had to call into work.  My body started aching, and I just laid on the couch all day, too weak to even reach for the remote.  It was very odd.  But I think racing at that stage was the main reason.  I think my body was fighting whatever was trying to hack into my immune system, and then all of a sudden I was forcing it to help me recover from a race.  It was defenseless.  Luckily, most of the big symptoms passed fairly quickly; the body aches, the weakness, the dizziness.  I am still stuck with a small couch, and a very congested nose, but I am still trooping on, and will give a shot at a 5-mile road race tonight.  Bad idea?

For anyone thinking about racing while sick, I ask, is it worth it?  You will most likely get a little worse, and you probably won't have the race you expect.  Some races just aren't worth it.  I think this one was one of those races for me...

My First Accident

This past weekend I was spending some quality time relaxing down the Cape, and thought I would go out for a nice long ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  The Trail runs from Dennis up to Wellfleet or out to Chatham.  I chose to do the Dennis to Wellfleet route, as this is a bit longer ride, and I wanted to get about 3 hours in.  The route is great, nice and flat.  The only quips I have is at all the street crossings are stop signs, so it's difficult to get into a great rhythm a lot of the time.

I decided to leave a bit early in the morning to avoid all the family traffic that would be on the trail, so I started at 6:30am.  I made it out to Wellfleet (approx. 26 miles into the ride) by 7:50am, ate some food, and headed back.  The ride was great.  There wasn't much traffic, I was cruising along, enjoy the morning sun.  When I was about 2 miles from the end of the trail, WHAM, my great morning came a screeching halt.

The families started inhabiting the trail in bunches, making my ride more difficult to maneuver.  I had just crossed an intersection, and so I was out of my saddle, sprinting a bit to pick up speed, when a little tike swerved in front of me from the other side of the trail on his tricycle.  In instinctively swerved further outside the trail, where I naturally lost control of my bike.  My front wheel slid on some sand, and while I was wobbling, I hit a brick that was so conveniently placed alongside the trail.  Front roll, crash, front rolls, crash, side roll, etc.

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, checking for injuries, but only found a little bit of blood coming out of the edge of my fingernail.  So I tried to get up and ride away, slightly embarrassed.  Didn't happen.  I was too shaken up, and it was only due to adrenaline that I was able to stand up at that instant because I fell right over.  Looking back down at my hand, which hurt the most, and blood is coming down more, out of more places now too.  I sat there for a bit, trying to calm myself down and not faint, and with the help of some other riders that stopped to help me (seems to be a trend for me...), I called Laura to come pick me up.

I didn't go directly to the hospital, even though I felt pretty sore, because I wanted to rest a bit and analyze the extent of my injuries.  After some rest, and a clean-up of my hand, my injuries are as follows.

1. Scratched up left hand, with the ring finger being the worst off, with several layers torn off.
2. Swollen right knee, which has subsided at this time.
3. Bruised left quad.
4. Tender left ribs.
5. Abrasions on my left elbow.

Nothing too serious, I was lucky!  Life goes on, and I will take out of this to watch out for kids on tricycles!