Get BACK, setback.

#RunningForRukai

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MaxineNapal26.2

Well, I sort of knew it would happen and quietly glad it's now and not next month but here I am on week two of a technicolor chest infection. The bugger of it all is that it has overtaken me on the back of strawng - a cracking 12 miles, followed by a cracking 4.5 miles, followed by 'what the hell is wrong with my head, I'm feeling all woooooooozy' and lo and behold, blammo.

I might have known downing crisps with pints of Budweiser while staying up too late wasn't a particularly good nutrition strategy, but as I'd dodged the bullet so far, what the hell, let's go for it. Well, it went for me. It's currently winning. Good doctor has given me a sword in the form of an ominiously large horse pill, aka 'antibiotics that we hope WORK this time' because we have already been on a five day stint of what may well have been placebo. Fetched in the midst of a family holiday to boot. It's all so unfair. Those negative thoughts are creeping into my soggy brain saying 'oh noooooo you are going to fall behiiiiiiiiind, you will be weeeeeeaaaaaaaak' and to that I say 'piffle and balderdash, it's a chest infection and it will go. There's the door, don't let it hit ya.'

Then I go bury my face in a pillow and cry (and cough) and cry (and cough) til I get my five winks of sleep til I cough myself awake again.

Upside? The lack of appetite is extraordinary for me, a gal who just loves my grub. So there will be far less towering over my slightly less iron arse when I hit the bricks again. God only knows when that will be but it will be. I took a 5k walk yesterday after a 12 day break from everything and had to stop and sit down on a park bench about 1-1/2 miles in to catch my breath. Twelve days ago I'd just done twelve miles. The injustice of it all!

Being American I followed the US Olympic marathon trials and read about Shalane Flanagan's surreal brain-fogged podium place. That there is one tough cookie. In this time of political farce, I am proud to be American from that feat alone. That is grit. Drive. Determination. I will recuperate and rescue that same Yankee grit from the depths of my ridiculously angry lungs.

For now, I Lemsip. My hubby is doing the Mr Mom-ing and this too shall pass.

My 'bronze' goal for VLM is to finish. Silver, under 5:30. Gold, near 5:00. I will continue to re-evaluate these but have already done the math - that slow trudging I did yesterday was about a 17:45 mile. The cutoff is beyond that. Even if I saunter, hacking out my guts, I will finish and they will give me a bloody medal.

But no, not me. Me, I will be running over that line. Time wounds all heels and heals all wounds. And lungs. And pride.

Big thoughts to my antibiotics, long may they kick bacterial ass.

I still got this.