Weeks 3 and 4: SICK.

Day one of week 3 I awoke with a little scratchiness in my throat, dreading what that meant. I mostly ignored it for a few days -- feeling a little run down, a little more sniffly, but able to continue. There was an interval run with some fun, short bursts of high intensity, more bike drills and one goofy ride where I wasn't feeling up to riding on the highway so I just rode back and forth between all the resorts... all was well. The Hilo to Volcano Ultra run was on the docket for Saturday, as part of a 3-person team for a total of approximately 10 miles each.

What happens when I play bicycle tourist

Thursday's swim gave us some hiccups. Sean and I were going to try out the master's swim at the pool in Waimea (at HPA), but by the time we got there and found the pool on HPA's sprawling campus we were 25 minutes late and too embarrassed to start. An let's be honest, it was incredibly cold at 6AM and the pool is outdoors. We then decided to go to Hapuna, but only had 10-15 minutes to swim because it was so late. "Oh well," we said. "We'll drive to Kona Aquatics after work tonight and swim." The joke was on us, however, because after driving 40 minutes to get there after a long day of work we found the pool closed for maintenance. Whomp whomp.

Eager to get back to it on Friday, I did my long bike ride on the trainer despite feeling more and more run down. My work day afterward was miserable and I resorted to drinking coffee (a very, very rare occurrence for me!) to keep myself going. I knew that the Hilo to Volcano race was going to be a push in my condition, but I headed home planning to quickly pack my bag, eat, and go right to bed for as many hours of sleep as I could get.

As soon as I arrived home I knew something was wrong. Sean's truck was in the driveway but the house was mostly dark and still locked. Bent over and wrapped up in every blanket we own, he staggered over from the couch to let me in and mumbled, "I have food poisoning."

And it was, indeed, very bad.

I'll leave out the details for everyone's sake, but suffice it to say we both ended up staying up all night and at 3:45AM, when I would have had to leave for the race, I was standing in our yard in the one tiny area that gets cell reception, googling "food poisoning treatments" and pondering whether or not I should be taking him to the hospital. Much to my chagrin I had to tell my teammates that I couldn't leave my husband in that condition and thus wouldn't be able to do the race. Here I would like to give a big huge shout out to those two amazing women, Barbie Nakamura and Melissa Schad, who completed the race without me (adding 50% more miles to their distances) and killed it!

Around 5AM Sean started being able to keep electrolytes down, but he was very, very sick all of Saturday. I had decided to forgo my workouts for the weekend and start again on Monday. On Sunday we relaxed together at the house, still trying to help him recover, then went to sleep. Early in the morning of Sunday-Monday night, I was woken up by a horrible pain in my stomach, along with nausea. I went to the bathroom three times before it got light, but given that I am prone to stomach problems, I didn't think much of it. That is, until 9Am when I started feeling so sick that I couldn't do anything but lie down. Then the vomiting started. Mine was not nearly so severe as Sean's, but still no cakewalk. I had to call out from work and miss yet another day of training, and I couldn't even think about eating or moving. By evening the stomach symptoms subsided but I was hit with awful body aches that made me feel like all my joints and muscles were on fire.

Kona Aquatics

It took until Wednesday for Sean and I both to feel ready to start training again. I started out with a very gentle jog on the road that runs from Honokaa to Waipio Valley -- gradual hills, and unique and beautiful views of eucalyptus forests on one side and blue ocean on the other. It was quite pleasant, and it felt good to be outdoors and moving again. Then I did a 30-minute swim at the Honokaa pool, which went well except for when I tried to perform the "fast 50's" called for in the workout schedule. My body was not having anything remotely "fast," so I let it go and just swam at a relaxed pace. I did my long ride for the week outside starting from the Mauna Lani resort area, and we finished up week 4 with a long swim at Kona Aquatics. It was the first time I've attempted a 1000 yards set in a pool, and although I've swam much longer distances in the ocean without stopping, the repetitive nature of the pool created its own challenge. It didn't help that there was a large group of people smoking cigarettes right outside the gate so that every time we breathed we got a lungful of secondhand smoke. Overall, though, it was a success and we got to see that lovely little notification pop up on our Garmin watches: Longest Pool Swim to date at 2500 yards!

Now that we are finally back to 100% or very close, so Week 5 is starting strong. I promise a much more interesting post for next week!