Sidelined by Sausage

I ran a solid PR at the Brooklyn Half Marathon last Saturday followed by a sensible recovery run Sunday. Monday night was a rigorous (and chilly) hill work session. Good training practices might suggest that Tuesday be a rest day – and it was.

Wednesday would have been speed work had the demands of my employer and the need for income not interfered (Drat, those pesky realities are always getting in the way!). Good worker-bee that I am, I went in early and stayed late hoping to get a jump on a weekly report I compile and deliver on Fridays. Turns out my efforts went unnoticed and were all for naught as my entire day was devoted to troubleshooting, crisis management, and solving other peoples issues.

Arriving home after a long day I settled into a lovely Syrah and decided on a plate of leftover pasta. I opted to enhance the already delicious penne ala vodka with some sausage I’d picked up from the local grocery store.

The meal came together perfectly. Sausage thoroughly cooked, pasta al dente, vodka sauce rich and spicy, a bit of grated Parmesan cheese. Bon appetit!

It was around 11 o’clock that I began to feel something funky going on – gastrointestinally speaking that is. It was around 1 o'clock in the morning when things began to get ugly.

****I would recommend that readers with weak stomachs skip ahead****

I hastily made my way to the bathroom and uncomfortably waited for what felt like an eternity. Feeling nauseous and disoriented, my mouth flooding with pre-vomit saliva I cursed my meal. Why? Why? Why? Then my stomach clenched, adrenaline pumped and in a moment of clarity I lunged for the bowl. On my knees, my body convulsed in an attempt to purge that which upset it so, but the effort was in vain. As the dry heaves subsided I found myself shaking, sweating and cold; my stomach still full of evil.

I cleaned myself off, found a blanket and pillow and set up base camp on the futon. Clearly this was going to be a long night and there is no need for my wife to suffer through it with me.

For hours my stomach flopped, gurgled and rolled like a storm churned sea. I lay wide-awake anxiously awaiting my fate. Sometime after 4 o’clock in the morning it was time to do war with my demons. It was an epic battle.

My body has never, ever, rejected anything with such force. My abdomen would contract forcing my mouth open. The sound of a visceral, barbaric and guttural yawp could momentarily be heard before being drowned out by rushing bile and the partially digested death that had been my dinner hours before. My head throbbed, my eyes watered and still my stomach emptied itself until there was nothing left.

Feeling loathsome and foul I picked myself off the floor and cleaned up as best I could in my battle-fatigued state before heading back to curl up and die.

****It’s safe to start reading again****

Needless to say, I did not go to work on Thursday nor did I get a run of any distance in. Instead I moaned, groaned and generally felt miserable. Friday was the same with one exception – my weekly report was due.

I had my laptop with me and was fortunately able to work from home. Saturday was much better; I could walk, talk, and even keep down food. But still, running seemed a bit too much to ask of my beleaguered body.

So here we are on Sunday afternoon. I’ve not run for almost a week, my stomach still feels somewhat queasy and I have (most likely) a few pieces of sausage to blame. It seems unjust that something so small and tasty can wreak such severe damage.

If there’s an upside, it’s that I’ve lost a few pounds and did a killer ab workout.