Why I Didn't Run in the Army Ten-Miler

Every year, the Army hosts an annual “Army 10-Miler” at every station around the entire globe. They claim that it’s one of the biggest 10-mile running events in the whole world (Which I can believe since this is the first 10-mile footrace I’ve ever heard of).

So even in my foreign location, they hosted a race. The running situation here is a little unique – to say the least. I’m on a very small instatallation, where the longest possible running loop is one kilometer in length. (Yes. It’s VERY small.)

When I first got here, my boss – who is a little quirky – greeted me with the words, “Hello! I’m so-and-so. I’m signing you up for a ten-mile run!” I sort of blinked at him… having been travelling for roughly a week, averaging about 2-3 broken hours of sleep per night. I later discovered my current fitness reputation had preceded me. That was over two months ago…

Most people balk at the idea of being signed up for a ten-mile run against their will. But not me! Gung Ho Ryan will train for ANYTHING! Especially when he doesn’t have a choice!

So I trained for two months, all with the focus of winning the race. My recent training had me only running 10k’s, which had actually shrunk to fast 5k’s in the last couple months, because my training had tapered off before leaving home. But I still had managed to pull out a sub-18 minute run at the Mountain Home AFB sprint triathlon just before leaving, so I had the fitness. I just needed to re-build the volume.

I was methodical about it, and also spent a lot of time working on speed and strength. I started to feel really pretty confident in my long-distance running. I started doing no medium-effort workouts. Workouts were either laughably easy, or very hard. Even in just a few weeks, I started to see some significant improvements because of that one simple change!

I was starting to feel very confident. During the course of those two-months, the base hosted various 5k and 10k runs. I was tempted to do some of them to test my fitness, but I knew that I only had a limited amount of time to work with, and a “test” of fitness wasn’t going to help me. If I did poorly, it would only undermine my confidence; and if I performed well, it still wouldn’t really gain me anything. So I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I was gaining enough confidence from my training.

The race was on a Sunday, and my last big workout was on Friday, just over a week prior. I nailed that workout and felt really good going into the easier week before the race.

Then on Sunday morning. I woke up with a scratchy throat… uh oh.

I’m used to getting little two-day viruses. It happens every once in a while. They come and they go, and it usually doesn’t put a hitch in training. I tried not to panic. I felt fine through the rest of Sunday, and put in a hard effort at the gym that evening. I even broke my PR for a ten minute effort on the rowing machine. 2755 meters in 10 minutes!

So I went to bed thinking I’d feel fine the next morning...

I did NOT feel fine. Throat pain had now been joined by a pounding headache and draining nose. Not good.

I had some places to visit on Monday, and I seriously considered nixing them. I opted to keep my appointments, but decided I was going to take Monday and Tuesday off of training. It was supposed to be an easy week anyways right? I’ll just recover and be back on track by Wednesday…

Well I ended up not working out again until Wednesday evening. But after having rested Monday and Tuesday, felt like I was on the mend. My workout on Wednesday included some intensity. It took a lot out of me, but I thought I'd be ok. So I only did light activity on Thursday.

Friday rolled around and I had planned to a short, but intense, run followed by a somewhat intense bike. I set out on the run and kept a good pace the whole way. Finished strong, and moved to the bike. I started to feel fatigued on the bike, so I pulled back a bit towards the end. But I still felt like I would be able to put in a good effort at the race in two days on Sunday.

When I finished, I went and got breakfast. That’s where things went downhill…

I started feeling achy and cold again; and by the time 3pm rolled around, I could barely see straight because of the headache and fever. I tried to take a nap… but I couldn’t sleep because of e pain in my head and I was getting the shakes.

By that evening, I could barely stand, and had to have a friend take me to the doctor. The doc gave me some meds and to try and sleep it off, but told me to come back in the morning to get a full eval.

After rolling around in bed for about 4 hours bouncing between shaking from chills and overheating, my fever broke, and I passed out…

I woke up in the morning and checked in at the office, and told my boss, “I’m not running in the ten-miler.” There. I did it. He was disappointed, because he’d been hoping I – an Air Force guy – would win the Army ten-miler. He said it would have given us some great bragging rights. I may have been capable of doing it had I not been ill, but there was no going back at this point.

Turned out the doctor thinks I got some sort of bacterial infection – hence, the intense fever – and my body was going to keep battling it for the rest of the week. So I wasn’t to do any physical activity for 5-6 days, and then needed to ease back in to it after that. Doctor put me on bedrest for two solid days, follwed by low activity for five more.

The disappointment of not being able to compete was mixed with other emotions. Frustration for getting sick and how a week of inactivity was going to set me back. (I now understand what athletes mean when they say, “I got sick and it derailed my plans for the next month.” I’ve never had this happen before.) But the instant I said the words, “I’m not running in the ten-miler,” I felt a flood of relief! The pressure to win had been looming over me… and now that I wasn’t racing, I feel like a burden was lifted from my shoulders.

I am now writing this almost fully recovered. Today, I was able to put in a hard run for the first time in over a week. I’m glad I whatever-bug-that-was is now behind me, and it wasn't super serious. I'll keep training and plugging away at it.

Until next time!!