Darkest brefore the dawn???

First, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope you had a great one with friends, family, happy children and love all around. Christmas is a very special time of year.

Now for the disaster. On Wednesday Dec. 24th I went out to 8 miles and the run was nothing short of perfect. Sure, you are saying to yourself, "disaster???? this isn't a disaster???" Wait, it's coming. So, on this 8 mile jaunt I glided up a 2 mile hill and flew down the backside of the mountain to finish my run at a very fast pace. I had the wings of an eagle on my shoulders. I finished the run and thought, "oh yeah, I'm ready for the marathon. I just finished a GREAT 20, I recovered well, and I just blazed through a great run."

Rule 1 of marathoning: don't mock the marathon gods. They don't like that.

The night of Christmas, from midnight to about 5:30 am. I got a vicious case of stomach flu. After selling Buicks in the bathroom no less that 6 times (this can be corroborated by my father-in-law, sister and brother-in-law, and my wife...I'm not a quiet sick person), I knew that my training for the week was in trouble. I think that I pulled something in my rib cage. I feels like a broken rib when I take a deep breath, which is not a feeling you want at anytime in your life and least of all when you need to go on a long run.

Today, I tried to go for a 13 mile run with Brice, but I only made it 5 before I pulled off and stopped the run. It felt like I had the lungs of a Chihuahua. If I tried to take a real breath, it hurt. You know your run is in trouble when you keep checking back with your GPS watch ever tenth of a mile: 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, 3.1... uh oh.

Then comes the decision as you keep asking yourself, "do I puss out on the run or do I gut it out?" I relied on experience. I usually gut it out if I'm just having an "off day"; however, the last time I pushed when I was not feeling physically well, bad things happened. So, I fought all my natural instinct and...pussed out. I'm going to give the ribs another day to heal and I'll see what happens on Tuesday. I pray that the dawn is just around the corner.

Now get back to work...