Race recap that never was

I should have had a race recap for you this week.  But I didn't.

Last Sunday was the Jingle Bell Dash, my raceiversary race and I had my outfit all ready picked and ready to go.  But my great little outfit was never put on.  My race packet was never picked up.  My bib was never pinned to my great little outfit.  And I never left the house for the race.

I had my very first DNS and I couldn't be more bummed about it.  I've been sidelined with stomach and GI issues for the past two weeks.  So bad that at one point the doctor thought I might have appendicitis and I had to have a CT scan of my abdomen.  Tests were run on everything you could extract from the body, blood tests, urine tests and yes, even stool tests.  Warning oversharing coming!  I'm telling you, there is nothing more difficult/unpleasant than having to divide your poop into little tubes for testing.  Ugh. 

In the meantime the doctor advised that I go on a course of omeprazole and see if my symptoms got better or worse as we waited for the test results to come back.  Well the results came back and everything was normal.  Even the stool samples came back and the results were negative.  Lovely.  WTF is wrong with me!?!?!  So far nothing has been figured out and during all the waiting the omeprazole has been helping, I am feeling better and am hoping to begin running again on Monday.

That's the thing with this issue I've been dealing with, the doctor didn't want me to run in fear that whatever it is might worsen if I ran, especially since we didn't know at that time what the test results would reveal.  Since all that occurred the Saturday before the race, it was deemed that I should not run the next day.

I was shattered.  Heartbroken.  Destroyed.

This stomach/GI issue, whatever it was, had taken away something I had looked forward to for months.  It stripped me of my festive mood.  It robbed me of my joy, the one thing that is for me and me alone, my running.  I was devastated.  I know some of you maybe feeling like I may have been overreacting, but I don't care.  This was something that was important to me and something I worked for and wanted to celebrate, and it didn't happen.  

I awoke the morning of the race on my own, at the time that I would have been getting up to get ready, it's as if my body knew that I was supposed to be up.  No alarms were set, my body just woke up.  I stared at the clock, watching the minutes go by, thinking of what I would be doing if I was running the race.  All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but I couldn't, my body was restless.  Then as the start time for my wave came onto the clock, I burst into tears.  I didn't intend on it and the emotions were just too much to hold back.  I sobbed silently in the dark.  Cursing my body for turning on me and keeping me from the race and cursing at it again for being awake at that moment so I could have another reminder that I'm not at the race.  It was my low point and I was deep in self-pity.

My lovely husband woke up when he heard me crying (he had taken to sleeping on the couch while I was sleeping propped up in the recliner, hoping that would help with my GI issues, he didn't want to be far away from me).  He helped me up out of the chair and gave me a big long hug telling me that I will get through this and that I need to take care of myself and that I will run and race again.  His never ending positivity is a light in my darkness and it may not have felt like it at the time, but he was right.

I have spent this past week off my feet and out of my sneakers and I have never wanted to get back into them so badly.  But no matter what my training schedule says, I am ignoring it, because getting out there too soon will send me back to where I was almost two weeks ago.  Last night was my first night back in bed in over a week, and it was the best night sleep I've had.  Each day the pain is a bit less, each day I make baby steps back into my "normal" routine, each day I get a step closer to running again.  It's painful to be making this slow progress, but I'm getting there.  All I know is that however short or long that first run will be, it will be done with a huge grin on my face, for I will finally have my joy back.