It's Just Abbey

I’m going to level with you guys. This was not a fun race for yours truly. I won’t try to sugar coat this one at all.

Now, first of all on the registration form it had an option to “Adopt a Duck.” What does that mean? Well it means either…

A) …as part of the charity event you get to “buy” a little rubber duck, they load them into a big truck and dump them in the river for a duck race!

B) …you get a live duckling to take home, name Charles Duckingsworth Jr and let him live in the bathtub.

Guess which one I honestly thought it was? I really thought I could opt to buy a real, live duck! I mean, the money is for charity. I would be adopting a duck… For the children. Aww. But no. It was some crap about a rubber duck and the river. I kind of pieced together what I think was going on but once you find out that you just bought $50 worth of duck food for nothing, it kind of kills your buzz.

Anywho, so I showed up to the race all ready to go. I had been snacking on strawberries and kiwi on my way up and I felt excellent. My training so far had been all about increasing mileage so I thought I had this in the bag. I wasn’t really gunning for a personal record or to shock the world and win it all, but I was hoping for a solid race. Something to look at my fitness level I suppose.

Enter: Abbey’s Stomach of DOOM

My stomach has become a lazy troll that lives under a bridge. Most days I can just stroll on by and it just grunts sluggishly while I pass on through. Some days though my stomach wakes up on the wrong side of the bridge and it starts swinging the FUCK YOU stick around like a Terrible Towel in Pittsburg. (Oh Jesus that reference… SORRY GUYS!)

I signed up for the race, got my t-shirt and started my pre-race warm ups and stretching. I was feeling good. I took a few swigs of water and I was off to the start line. They announced that there was a minute to the gun. I started bouncing a little to elevate my heart rate a tad, a handy trick I found makes my life a lot easier.

NOT TODAY! Look! From under the bridge! What it that thing and why does it have a stick!?

I bounced once and my stomach lurched. I hesitated and bounced again. Another lurch. I thought maybe I just drank too fast and tried to burp or something. Nothing happened other than my stomach getting angrier. I poked it, bounced around, stretched and everything I could think of in the 45 seconds I had before the gun fired. It stayed the same.

Oh boy, here we go.

The gun fired and I took off hoping that the pain was all in my head or would go away. I knew I was lying to myself to think either one but hey, you pay to run 3 miles you try to stay positive! The first mile I stayed at my race pace and had I maintained it I would have given my personal best a run for its money but it wasn’t in the cards.

As I started mile 2 it felt like there was a balloon being inflated slowly in my abdomen. There was so much pressure from the center of my body pressing out I just wanted to punch myself in the gut and make it go away. Even in pain I knew that wasn’t the wisest route so I carried on only losing a bit of speed. My only goal was to keep the race under 30 minutes.

From the start of the 3rd mile until the finish line I was convinced my appendix had burst. The pain was blinding but I didn’t stop running. I thought a few things. First that if my appendix really did burst I would pass out sooner or later. Second, if I stopped now I would have to walk or wait for someone to come to me. It was better to tough it out and make it to the end. I convinced myself that if I was still running, I wasn’t in that much pain.

I dashed to the finish line with all my energy and stopped my watch. I was supposed to have a gun time and a chip time but all they listed was my gun time. My watch recorded chip time and that is the time I adhere to:

28:32

All in all, not bad for running in a haze of pain and discomfort. I hobbled over to the food area and got some fruit and water. I stayed for some of the awards mostly just waiting to see if the pain would die down. When I realized it wouldn’t I got in my car and drove home. It felt like the longest drive ever.

I have been putting off this report mostly to access my health status. I wanted to know what was ailing me but for the life of me I don’t know. I will say that that night I was up for hours with crazy heart burn and the next day I was eating Tums like candy. I spent the weekend off running because all the heart burn and trauma ate up my esophagus so bad it hurt to bend my torso. Interesting problems I know.

So I don’t know what happened, I wish I knew. It is easier to keep the troll under the bridge if I knew what lured him out in the first place.

Either way I was happy with my time and my determination. I am getting faster and more stubborn by the mile! Hopefully the next race will be a little less severe. Fingers crossed!