Run.Brownie.Run.

            I’ve never been one to get sick. Not even when I am exposed to all sorts of viruses, bacteria, fomites in the ER.

            Nor am I one to spit. To spit while running.

            But I have finally caught on. A habit, which I found and still find utterly disgusting when running. Hopefully, it does not become my own habit. If I do, I will disown myself, if there is even such a thing.

            Yet this was the inevitable when I was finally hit by some nagging illness that wrecked havoc to my days this week.

            Barry, the PA where I work diagnosed me (off-the-books) with Strep Throat, when my rapid strep test came back positive Monday. This was that day when I complained of pain with swallowing. I had woken up feeling unwell that morning. Of course, the scared shitless that I am about calling in, I persisted and went to work that day. (note: I called in sick in March. Before March, I had called-in sick in July.)

            That was my 2^nd workday of my 3-day work-week. Of course, I had the strep and got a shot of Bicillin on my right butt cheek. Boy, that hurt and 4 days after that shot, I still feel the lump on my gluts where the shot had gone.

            Of course, too, I thought I had felt better when I came back to work Tuesday. I was not. With much prodding from the husband, I was finally convinced to leave my Philly Marathon 2012 bag at home (that acts as my running bag). I worked and sucked it up.

            All hell broke loose in my body the moment I set out into the cool evening air after my shift and I just started to have chills non-stop. It finally dawned on me: I WAS sick.

            So, thus, began the agony of counting the days when I had not run and could not run.

            Sunday- it rained. Monday- I got the shot of Bicillin and went on a birthday dinner and did not run. Tuesday- the realization, the running bag left home, thus, no run.

            I was sick and it consumed me to the core. I had not run for 4 days, I had counted by Wednesday. And for someone stickler to (some) rules, I knew I had broken Hansons and Humphrey’s “rules.” Of course, if you look deep into the book, they talk of modification. But modification was not an option for me, a person aiming to finish her first 26.2.

            It was all-contemplation on those days. Running friends were supportive enough to say I needed rest. It took me a while to finally come to terms with the fact that if your body says, “pause” you really have to “pause.”

            After four days of hiatus, I was resolved to run again. Despite the husband’s advice to do an easy 5-miler, I secretly went ahead and did a 9-miler tempo.

            It was cruel and gruesome.

            That’s where the spitting came into the picture.

            The first 2 miles, as I managed my way to Hoboken, was a horrible rendition of my running. It was as though my feet were alien and my trunk did not seem to belong to my lower extremities. I know I am not a fast runner but I know I may have looked like a klutz. Adding to the conundrum of syncing these parts of my body together was the fact that I was too confident the weather was mild, I decided to skip 2 puffs of Albuterol, which has been part of my “must-do” prior to a run on colder temps. Big mistake. I was tight and breathing was heavy. I thought for a while my airways would shut down on me.

           With my sinuses still clogged, I could barely hear, too.

            In short, everything was just not flowing accordingly.

            That’s when I started the spitting game.

            Embarrassingly so. I spat from Hoboken and back. Of course, this took a lot of courage for me. Constantly, I had to look around to make sure no one was behind me, because it sure wouldn’t look pretty.

            In fact, it would be just as ugly as that time when I accidentally (or was it purposely) passed gas while on a 16-miler at 9 o’clock at night somewhere near the Edgewater waterway and apparently, a rather-fast male runner had zoomed his way behind me. That wasn’t pretty. And so un-womanly. Or civilized, for that matter.

           So, so did this dilemma about spitting.

            I expectorated and expectorated in the most disgusting matter. Apparently, this helped. And it helped me survive that run. It was then that I, somehow, understood the psychology of spitting while running— for some.

            My point? Not much really. Except that spitting did help. Spitting is disgusting. But at that point in time, it was overriding all logic and sense.

            That it was a matter of survival that day and you need to do and succumb to survival measures when the need arises.

            And in retrospect, resting when you were really supposed to. To pause when your body tells you to. Then the spitting would have been averted.

            I know my 4-day break was not enough. My body is not a hundred percent and I still have to learn to listen to it.

            Maybe in time, I will. For now, let me be a stickler.