Two Florida runs end the season

I do not know what is wrong with my stomach, but a week after getting ill at the marathon, I ended up getting woefully sick after the first night of my Florida trip for the marathon that did not happen.

So all day Saturday was spent in bed...when I was not in the bathroom with explosive diarrhea and vomit that gradually went from chunks to liquid to dry nothing.

That killed Sunday, too. Imagine if I had to run a race that day!

Monday, I did a light three-mile jog (plus one-mile walk) with my mom at a 10-minute pace.

Tuesday, I did 5.2 miles in the grossly muggy 72-degree Florida morning. I thought I was running much faster than the 8:35 pace I was doing, but then again, I had lost eight pounds from being sick. My muscles were weak. I was dehydrated. I had not had a solid poop in days.

It dawned on me during that run that any hope of doing more distance work in the near future had now been dashed. All the work I had done in the previous 18-weeks, including my snapped-to return to form last week, was now gone. My muscles need to begin to repair from scratch, just as they had after those triumphant, 3:04 and 3:06 races.

Happy that I was at least able to do a couple of short runs in Cape Coral for a change of scenery, I viewed it as the end of another season in my life of running. Now, onward.