More of that Swine Sods Law

The marathon training was done – id flipped through my book of motivations while battling various emotions on a damp Tuesday evening and completed a 22 mile slog around the outskirts of Plymouth. My watch read 2:53:59 – the dream of a sub 3:30 was alive. The train was pulling into the station named Job Done when it got derailed by the smallest of pebbles on the track.

Turning a corner on my bike, the tyre met with some wet concrete and moved sideways instead forwards. I tumbled to the ground, my hands breaking most of my fall as they jarred through the gravel, my hip hitting hard into the cold ground while my legs still straddled the bike. In amongst the adrenaline I didn’t notice a cut in my ankle and failed to clean away the germ harbouring mud from the opening wound.
It got infected, as they do. My ankle is swollen up, the skin tight around the now all too obvious hole. I woke up the same night with flu symptoms as the bacteria swarmed in my blood exploring their new home. A few days later the Doc gave me some antibiotics and assurances that it should be fine in a week – three days before we line up on the course in Istanbul.

But there are more worries. My housemate, who is a constant sniffler at the best of times, thinks he has got swine flu. I have my doubts – I think it’s a very easy way to get a week off work; you log on the website, you tick the box saying you have a sudden cough and tick the box saying you have a fever and they load up a screen saying you might have swine flu stay at home. I don’t know what this flu is like – but my experience of having flu once put me in bed for 3 solid days. I wasn’t coughing and spluttering around the house in my pants watching TV all day. OK it’s a share house – it comes with the territory, but the timing is bad. Even worse is his annoying bird, Mute, who has stayed at the house 100% of the time with the intention of catching it herself. OK, great, if that’s what you want to do then go for it – but not in my house! Her having it at least doubles the chances of me catching it too – which would under normal service be very inconvenient, but with the marathon looming is bordering on making me quite angry. She’s got ‘it’ now of course – I went to get her Tamiflu for her from boots this morning. Ive got a cough, and feel weird now and again but I think and hope it’s related to the 4 grams of penicillin I’m popping every day. My housemate, of course suggests that ive probably got it too – to which I said Ive got a cold - If I had flu id be in bed not wanting to move. There is some tension; I think the house has run its course.

Maybe.

It will all be fine just so long as my ankle recovers and I don’t get swine flu, a cold or anything else right before I set off for Turkey. That would make me upset.