· Date: Saturday July 13, 2019
· Rest Day: Iowa City, Iowa
They thought I was dead. I guess I hadn’t moved positions since I laid down last night and I had hardly made a sound. I awoke sometime around eleven in the morning, which was late not only for 4K standards but would have been considered late in any scenario. I had slept an incredible amount. Between yesterday at noon and now, I had only been awake for five or six hours. The antibiotics were already working as they fought off my infection and I started to heal. The NyQuil was finally able to work now too since the antibiotics helped to lessen the severity of my infection. I had the most restful sleep I had in days.
Someone brought me a cinnamon bun and almost everyone asked me how I was feeling. The answer was that I was feeling better, but not nearly all the way better. The cinnamon bun made my morning and my mouth started watering as soon as I saw it. The team knew me well!
Regardless this was the first improvement I had in days so I was hoping I could run tomorrow. I hated the fact that I had given up. I hated the fact that there was an entire day where I should have run sixteen miles, that was missing. I already had doubts about being able to connect where we had run because of all our shuttling, running in groups of four, and detours. Now, there was no denying the massive gap in the mileage I was supposed to have run. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. If I hadn’t taken the day off though, the Urgent Care facilities would have all been closed by the time we finished our miles. I undoubtedly would have worsened my symptoms and struggled to make it through the day, if I even could have. The fact that packing my sleeping pad and sleeping bag brought so much exhaustion yesterday morning was humiliating. It was scary how I had felt these nagging symptoms since Day Seventeen and then over only a few days, they dramatically worsened. In the end, I was glad I had taken the day off because it would have been detrimental to the team and I. Seeing my improvement today and picturing in my mind the deterioration that likely would have occurred after running sixteen miles was frightening. I was especially happy that I hadn’t passed “The Plague” to anyone else yet. People on the team still had symptoms like Mason’s. But so far, these symptoms were limited to “The Sickness” and “The Plague” was only infecting me. If I had been in a running van yesterday, we were confident multiple people would have developed the bacterial infection down the road.
Throughout the day, I rested. I mean actually rested too. Most previous rest days had been more exhausting than actual running days. But today, I kept myself isolated and to myself. I talked to my family on the phone and I talked to my girlfriend too. I tried to blog a little bit and I added some notes to my phone about the previous days. Essentially, I was doing everything I could to rest, recuperate, and to keep my mind off things. At one point, I went outside on the front steps of the church and sat in the sun. It felt strange that I had been inside for so long. I was used to being outside for almost all my waking hours and I couldn’t remember the last time I had sat outside.
As I was sitting there on the steps, someone came up to me and told me the team was going to a YMCA to shower. They asked if I wanted to go and I happily said yes. I think the last time I had showered had been in Briar Cliff University just before going to bed. I had showered twice that night but hadn’t at all since then. Now, I was feeling so much better and had control of my cough, my throat was not as inflamed, and I could properly breathe, so I figured I could go. Rob, Caroline, and I took the Host Van because we wanted to go to CVS after. Everyone else went in the running vans.
Throughout the trip, there had been various communal showers we had used. Whether it was a communal shower in a school locker room, a communal shower in a workout facility, or anywhere else, I had refused to go in with everyone else. I just didn’t like it. Before today, we always had some extra time where we could wait to shower in the peace and quiet of our own company. I felt like we couldn’t always get our own space on 4K because we were always together. If I could help it, I didn’t want to share my shower with anyone. That was where I drew the line! But today, we didn’t have that luxury. Other people were showering at the YMCA too and I just did not like any aspect of it.
In the locker room, there was a scale and so all the guys were seeing how their weight had changed with all our running. My weight had gone down ten pounds. I didn’t think that this was reflective of the miles we had been pounding on the pavement though. I hadn’t eaten or drank consistently for the past few days and so I thought it was more reflective of that. A few days later, we found another scale and my assumptions were correct. I had only lost a couple of pounds since San Francisco. I was happy, as that meant that my training as well as the extra food, I had bought throughout the summer, was all worth it. I was doing something right.
After the showers, Rob, Caroline, and I went to CVS. Rob was starting to feel sick and before it turned into “The Sickness” or worse, “The Plague” he wanted to get medicine and immune support. I also restocked on some NyQuil and DayQuil while we were there. I always liked talking with Rob and Caroline. There had been multiple nights already where we had stayed up late talking and the conversation was always deep. Today in the van though, we didn’t talk much because we weren’t feeling our greatest.
I remember at one point; we passed the Duane Banks Baseball Stadium which was home to the University of Iowa Hawkeyes Baseball team. Close by was the University of Iowa Hospital and Cancer Center. From the top floor of the hospital, children receiving chemotherapy could watch the baseball games. The baseball team was known to wave back to those kids watching through the glass! A section of the stadium was even intentionally built shorter than the other sections so that the line of sight from the hospital was not obstructed. Rob, Caroline, and I thought that this was incredible, and we loved it!
When we got back to the host, we found some food and reheated dinner. Yesterday, I had missed another community dinner the church had for us and I was disappointed. Before seeing all the left-over food in the fridges for us, I had no idea this had even happened. I think this showed how exhausted I had been. I was disappointed that again, Ulman had no service event scheduled for our rest day, but selfishly, I was glad that also meant I wasn’t going to be missing out on anything serious. It seemed everyone today was just exploring Iowa City. I was glad to rest. Tomorrow we had a fourteen-mile day and I didn’t want to skip it.
As the sun went down, I retreated to my sleeping pad and packed up my things as much as I could before we left tomorrow. I wanted to have as little to do as possible in the morning. Mason was starting to feel a lot better as well and we talked for a little bit. We had grown closer since our time in quarantine together had given us more time to talk than before. But soon, we both grew tired and went to sleep early.
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