Dealing with Disappointment

This is not the post I wanted to write, but life got in the way.

For those of you who may not remember: my first post-babies half marathon was last weekend. I'd been training hard and was totally ready, but apparently it wasn't meant to be. I'm a nervous racer, who has been known to throw up before races, so I wasn't particularly surprised when I threw up shortly after waking up Saturday morning. But then, I couldn't stop.

I couldn't eat anything, threw up all the water I'd had in the car on the way to the race, threw up on the walk to the starting line, and then actually passed out on the ground while dry heaving. At that point, Hubby, my Dad and my BFF realized that something wasn't quite right, and took me to the medical tent. I had my blood pressure and heart rate checked, which both checked out as normal. It didn't register with me until later, but that should have been my clue that something else was up. Well, hello, stomach bug!

After getting checked out by the medical staff, they said "It's up to you whether you think you can run it, but we really don't want to scrape you off the road later. You might want to bow out." That really wasn't what I wanted to hear, but I also knew that I had absolutely nothing in the tank--running the race I wanted was already out of the question. Hubby, BFF and Dad convinced me to at least start the race and see how it went, so I did. BFF and I were the last ones to cross the starting line, but we ran together and slowly picked off the back of the pack. But, then the blurg came back at mile 2.5, and I had to stop and walk. I knew Hubby and Dad were waiting for us at mile 4.5, so I had to make it that far, but it was a slow trip. I was still nauseous and absolutely exhausted by the time we finally saw our cheering section, and I knew my race was over.

I've spent the past week being alternately depressed and pissed off about the way Saturday went, but I'm hoping I can start to move beyond the disappointment and plan for my next race. At least now I will be able to say "It can't be any worse" when I line up at the starting line again. Hopefully this experience has gotten the "bugs" out of my system, and my next race will be a cause for excitement, not anxiety.

Speaking of my next race, I desperately want to run a half marathon every year, and I'm running out of time in 2014! To that end, I'm going to sign up for the Schaumburg Half Marathon and 5k Turkey Trot on November 29th. It's not nearly as soon as I would like, but it's the best option for me in terms of location and price, so I'm going to do it! My hope is that I'll be able to re-program myself a little so that I can look forward to this race with excitement and not anxiety. With a little more training, some luck, and the help of the patron saint of the stomach flu, I plan to finally, actually run my first half marathon post-babies in 36 days!