Man macht und Gott Lacht - part two

So yes - I have not blogged much.  I've been absent from FaceBook (no bad thing) and have not commented much on your blogs (a bad thing - I'm sorry).  I don't know about you but in the weeks leading up to an A race, the rest of my life seems to go by the wayside.  The focus is on my race.  And then - when it's over - the rest of my life comes roaring back at me.  So that has some been some of what I've been doing.  Kids stuff, house stuff, admin stuff etc.  Workout-wise I have been on my bike as much as I can, and I find it SO much more time-consuming than running so even less time for blogging.  Enjoyable, but time-consuming. Expensive too!  In the past weeks I've invested in a new pair of bike shorts (needed more than one pair for a 3 day trip, after all), a waterproof jacket (found out on my one ride in the rain that the jacket I have is not waterproof), and various smaller bits which all seem to have added up. On the upside, I look very cool.

And then there's something I haven't really blogged much about because I kind of didn't want to think about it.  I told you I had a chest infection after Boston.  Something like that (an infection after exhaustion after a serious effort) was to be expected so I didn't really pay it much heed, took my antibiotics and got back to my life.  Over the past 5 weeks I had noticed that my runs were slow, that I was still coughing on my bike and on my runs, but I thought I was on the road to recovery.  However, this Friday I woke up in the night with a pounding headache and by Saturday morning I felt totally lousy again.  Last night my husband took me to the duty doctor at the hospital and yep - my chest infection is back, or never really went away really.  This time I have been put on more powerful antibiotics which I'm hopeful about as Adam, who has also been suffering has finally improved after being on these particular antibiotics and an inhaler.  So here I am - 4 days before I'm meant to set off on an endurance event (230 miles in 3 days) and I'm in bed feeling lousy.  Am I going to do it?  I don't know.  I'm going to see my own doctor tomorrow and get her advice on it but I do realise it's beginning to look unlikely.  Right now I can't even imagine getting on my bike, let alone riding it for hours for 3 days.  But on the other hand, it's an event I was looking forward to and, more importantly, it's a fundraising event for a cause I feel very strongly about and I am really unhappy about dropping out of it.  Right now, I guess, it's out of my control.  I'll have to see how much I pick up in the next few days.

For those of you who have already donated - thank you.  Regardless of whether I'm able to cycle the challenge, the money will be going directly to JDRF and will go towards finding a cure for diabetes.  For those of you who have not yet donated, it's not too late and, as of yesterday, my friend Martha's parents are matching the contributions made on either the UK or the US website.

No shocking insights to share with you this post other than listen to your body - don't end up doing what I've done and go out there too quickly after you've been ill. I very much hope that I will still be able to ride this week but even if I do, I will not be doing it with the fitness I would have liked.  So it goes.


Good luck to all of you out there who are racing in these next few weeks (or raced them yesterday, Jen and Amanda) and as I am now bed-ridden I hope to be able to catch up on your blogs.