· Date: Friday July 12, 2019
· Where: Fort Dodge, Iowa to Iowa City, Iowa
· Total Distance Covered: 197 miles
· Running Partner: Justin
This morning, I woke up exhausted. Evan, who had been sleeping near me said that I had been coughing all night. This surprised me because I hadn’t woken up at all. Even when everyone had come back, I had not even opened a wink. When I woke up, my cough wasn’t as frequent, but everything else was either the same as yesterday or worse. I felt terrible.
When I lifted myself off the floor to go to the bathroom, I felt weak and my muscles were aching. It was a different ache from the past few weeks where I was aching from running so many miles. This was the constant aching weakness that you feel when you are sick and can’t do anything else besides sleep. I remember the effort to roll my sleeping bag, my sleeping pad, and pack up my duffle bag made me feel like I had already run the sixteen miles that we were supposed to run today. There was no way I could run.
After the dedication circle, I made the painful and heartbreaking decision. I wasn’t going to run. I was beyond disappointed. I felt like I was letting the team down because this was the largest day so far in terms of mileage, and we had all been looking forward to it. I felt like I had let Justin down because he was supposed to be my partner. I felt like I had let everyone down who had supported me to get this far. Most importantly I felt like I had let down Laurie and those we were running for.
As the team got organized for the day, I made a promise to myself that once I was feeling better, I would make up these sixteen miles and run extra. If I couldn’t run today, I would at least run the same mileage by the time we had reached Boston. Already, I had tripled the mileage I had missed while Evan and I had ridden in the Host Van back in Montana.
Eventually, we realized that Mason was having much of the same symptoms I was and was also in terrible condition. John-Hanson had miraculously cured overnight and was feeling spectacular. Somehow, Mason and I had not fared as well. Kate, Regi, and Caroline ended up joining us in the small SUV today as they drove us to an urgent care facility that was on the route. We stopped somewhere between Fort Dodge and Iowa City. There, I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection and Mason was diagnosed with a viral infection. We realized we had the fortune to have not one, but two different infections traveling around Team Boston. Mason had what we had been calling “The Sickness.” I had what became known as “The Plague.”
We would buy lunch somewhere when we picked up my antibiotics from the pharmacy. Mason and I both also picked up various vitamins and supplements as well as aspirin, Tylenol, and the DayQuil/NyQuil combination. The doctor had told me to use Flonase too, so I purchased that as well. I felt like I bought the whole drug store.
We arrived at the host by early afternoon and waited outside in the parking lot to be let inside. Our host for tonight was the same as tomorrow due to a rest day. It was a large church with a large meeting hall and a small basement with classrooms. Soon, they let us inside and we could lay down and go to sleep. Mason and I restricted ourselves and our belongings to one room in the basement. We didn’t want to spread anything else to the team. Over the next few hours and day that we spent at this host, our room would be known as the quarantine chambers. Erin would bring us food on a tray, and we would eat some of it if we could.
Mason and I were so thankful for everyone who had helped us today and cared for us but were both too exhausted to show our appreciation. I remember, I laid down and didn’t move except for when my alarm went off letting me know it was time to take my medicine. Then, I went to the bathroom, croaked hello to the rest of Team Boston, which had now arrived and begun to get settled, and went back to sleep. I hardly even ate anything.
I was tired, demoralized, and completely deflated.
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