germ warfare

Sometimes there’s no hope for it. Whatever’s going on out there is a conspiracy against you that nothing can ameliorate. Right now I’m sick, but I can’t get better. I need to rest, but rest is impossible.
On Friday afternoon in Mildura I have the proverbial splitting headache. I lie on the floor of a borrowed office, then wander the streets in desperation.
Saturday I run a five-hour training session, drive four and a half hours to Bendigo, and hop the last train back to Melbourne and Croydon, walking in the door just before midnight. A big, big day.
Early Sunday afternoon I’m a happy little couch potato, dabbling in the big Saturday broadsheet, alternating with the Blues slapping Brisbane on the box. A sudden irresistible urge to cough catches me. Two hours later after more coughing I’m suspicious.
Late Sunday afternoon my good woman and I confabulate about a movie and sleepover. It’s a long weekend. I warn her that I think things are not quite right with me. Will she risk contamination? To her eternal credit, she does.
I fight this damn thing for three days: scummy throat, bleary eyes, aching back. On Monday I ride, but feel crap less than a kilometre down the road. I baulk at the foot of the Dandenongs and ride a weird 35-kilometre, late-afternoon, up-hill-and-down-dale circuit through Kilsyth, Montrose, Mooroolbark, Chirnside Park, Wonga Park and Warranwood.
I plan to ride Tuesday and don’t feel too bad, but work grabs me and won’t let go. Wednesday I have Donna on my mind. I need to grind up an inexorable ascent. Three Wednesdays from this one I’ll be in Paris en route to the Massif Central, the French Alps and the Pyrénées. I figure the ride up Donna will either kill this bug or kill me.
I can’t sleep. I get up at 3:29 and busy myself around the house. I pack for my commute to Bendigo. I’m running and hosting a forum on Friday. Thirty people are coming from all over the state. So much to do.
I cough and cough and sneeze and blow, and marvel at life’s ability to remind me how insignificant my woes are even in the pantheon of minor events.
And things are about to get a whole lot worse.