My fever broke on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Whether it was the four days of 2:30 AM wake-ups, the Petri dish that is a race start line featuring germs and ailments from all corners of the world, or just an inscrutable twist of fate, I came down with a flu-like illness either during the Walt Disney World Marathon or just after it. I had to fly to Los Angeles on Tuesday morning for a few things and as I sat shivering on the plane, I realized I should’ve cancelled everything and just stayed in bed. Armed with a Z-pack from my GP, I essentially am doing just that, only instead of being on a couch in Florida, I’m on a couch in California.
As part of this trip, I had long ago registered for the Carlsbad Marathon. I even had paid the $20 surcharge for day-of packet pickup. I’d rented a car instead of Ubering/Lyfting wherever I needed to go. In scheduling facetime (actual facetime, not virtual Apple app FaceTime), I told friends I needed an early night on Saturday to drive down at 3 AM for the race on Sunday.
But the future is in doubt. Whilst sweating out germs and agony in a restless fever dream earlier this week, I had decided not to go. But then the fever broke and, well, I began to hear the call of the road. Maybe I could rally? Besides, I’m feeling lousy emotionally and mentally by not running; minor losses in weight (gains then in the fight of the waistline) have been given up in slothful lethargy and confusion over what to do with a cold/flu (you feed it, right? I wish I had tried starving it).
And so today I tried a short run to see how things might go. A canary in the mineshaft. A metal helmet balanced on my bayonet and raised above the trench line. And it turns out… I continue to cough like an 80-year-old five-packs-a-day smoker. It’s a hacking, scratchy, thunderous cough, a wheezy take on a $25,000 Pyramid clue for “What Sand Paper Might Say.” It wracks my body; it dims my soul.
It does not seem likely that I can make it to this marathon. I suppose there is still a chance. It’s that misbegotten faith in the exception to the odds that has usually rational people plunk down money on a lottery ticket or place a bet on Red 5 at the Roulette wheel. There is a chance… it’s just the house is destined to win and you are destined to lose.
And in the insanity of the “it could happen to you”-ness of bucking the odds and walking away a winner, I know that by not going to Carlsbad I will definitely lose. A Did Not Start is worse than a Did Not Finish which is worse than a Last Place Finish. But what if by going my cough regroups the germs to launch a massive onslaught and I wind up needing ever more time away from running to recover.
I don’t know. The correct answer is not to go to run on Sunday. But I’m not sure it’s the right answer.