After a highlight in my season on Sunday, I had an increasingly rough travel day on Monday.  I woke up feeling a little off, thinking it was just the race and the lack of good sleep.  Boarded the plane to Newark and the closer we got to the US the worse I felt.  By the time I made it back to Greenville I already knew I had come down with something, and at that time I was thinking along the lines of a common cold.  I slept the following night sweating as if I was still racing my bike.  I had to get up and eat because my heart was going so fast for so long that I was basically bonking while trying to sleep! When the sun finally came up I decided to take my temperature and it was holding at 103˚F.  I am not one that ever feels a need to go to the doctor, but I didn’t even hesitate this time and I was off to the hospital.

I was greeted like a normal patient, very friendly.  My temperature was taken and symptoms discussed, then I said I had traveled from Ireland the day before.  I hadn’t even finished that sentence before I was masked and put into a back room.  From there we ran several test and each came back with a positive for the H1N1(Swine Flu) virus.  Still masked, I was asked to just leave the hospital imediatly and avoid contact with anyone.   I was very surprised at how scared everyone is of this virus.  Yes, it is not the best I have ever felt, but I was not suffering that much and have felt worse and more run down with just heavy colds.  Nurses were even hiding behind doors and walls to avoid me, it was quite funny actually, and showed that people really fear the unknown.

This hasn’t made for the best prep for USPro.  At first I thought there wasn’t a chance of me racing, but as the days past I felt better and better and finally rode my bike on Thursday.  I did another good ride Friday with a couple of times up Paris Mt. in hopes of getting the body going and now it is Saturday and I am still unsure of how I will feel.  On the couch I feel fine.  It’s obvious that I have a little cold, but other than that I am pretty normal.  Out on the bike is a different story.  It is hard to judge how hard I am going, and everything seems to almost be a blur.  I am hoping that it is just the medication and it will work itself out over the next day.