talus slope of the mind

Whoops—seems that mentioning an impending 10k is enough to jinx the whole thing (for me at least). We went to bed feeling fine Friday night, but when the alarm went off Saturday morning, I knew I was in trouble. Everything ached, but not the good ache you get from exercise. And I had that special pain that creeps up the back of my neck when I’m rockin’ a fever. Joy.

Maybe I’m just tired, I thought. I got dressed in my race clothes. I ate a light breakfast. I felt a little better. I loaded up all my stuff. Christina and I headed out to Ivins. I felt worse. So I did what I considered to be the smart thing: I put Christina on the bus up to the starting line, handed in my timing chip, chatted with my brother and his people as they waited on the last bus, and then went to the car and turned on the heat (I couldn’t get warm).

The upshot of all of this is that I thought to bring the camera with me. I figured that if I wasn’t going to run, I might as well take photos of the wife and brother crossing the finish line. Except that in my fever-addled and violently-shivering state, I evidently can’t run a camera to save my life and recorded my shoes instead of Christina crossing the line. Brilliant.

The 2011 Spectrum 10k, therefore, gets put down in the log as a DNF, which is a mite misleading since “did not start” would be more true than “did not finish” or “finished with assistance of ambulance” or some other fun acronym. (Looking over the official results shows they didn’t even give me the dignity of a DNF. Rude.)

My sister-in-law gave me the expected and somewhat friendly ribbing of “J wussed out.” But I showed her! The next day, with my condition none-too-improved, I was at the doctor getting an awesome round of antibiotics prescribed for the spider egg sac looking, uh, thing that was hanging out on my tonsils. (Gross, right? Pics after the break.)

Since Christina took the Garmin, I know what the official race course was. Once well and healthy (it might be a few days), I’m planning on an evening run down the canyon to see what my time might have been like this year. I’ve promised not to try to beat Christina’s time (which, frankly, would be unlikely anyhow), but I’d like to at least know since I really did prepare for this one.

Gross, right? Oh, don’t see it?

Yeah—that shouldn’t be there. I half-expected a million little spiders to come pouring out of my mouth last night.