This is how you taper?

I hesitate to post this before my race, because I really don't want to make excuses before I even start the race, but this is reality. The last six months I have been training and targeting Eagleman. Everything was going almost perfect. I had been able to run, had some great races, was PRing, and really felt fit. Well, that was until about 3 weeks ago. My training started to feel off, I was really tired all the time, sleeping more than usual, my house was dirty and laundry undone and I didn't care(very out of character for me). All I wanted to do was sit on my couch. I would get excited about the idea of a workout and then go to do it and feel absolutely terrible. I didn't know what was wrong, I talked to my coach, my husband, my training partners, and we thought I was just tired from a HUGE training block and maybe a little run down from the weight I had lost over the last 6 months. WRONG.

So last Friday morning, I woke up and felt terrible. UGGG.... Friday was also the first easy day working towards my taper. I had planned to go for a short walk and do some light stretching in the am and an easy swim in the afternoon. My stomach hurt, I had a headache, was freezing cold, and had no energy. I thought maybe I had eaten something bad and just needed to get moving. I went for my walk at a snails pace wanting the whole time to just stop and sit down. When I got home I laid on the floor for 30 minutes unable to move and barely able to answer my husband when he talked to me. I really wanted to go to work, so finally I got up and headed to the shower. But after realizing that I was unable to complete the shower, I decided to call in sick. My husband set me up with an array of sick people stuff, animal crackers, gatorade, ginger ale, tea, ect. After about an hour and a half I figured something must be really wrong, since. I still couldn't stand up and still had all the other issues I had woken up with, yet I didn't have head cold symptoms and wasn't throwing up. So, I called my mom to take me to the doctor.

The doctor said I had an infection somewhere in my body and all my white blood cells had been released("even the baby ones") and the infection wasn't respiratory or UTI. So I was told to go home take antibiotics, drink lots and 3 days of bed rest. Antibiotics, fine, drink lots, fine, 3 days bed rest???? WHAT???? I emailed my coach and didn't tell him about the bed rest and his response was "3 days rest." OMG, I had a great TT exercise planned for Saturday and Sunday was a 4hour brick and and hour swim. My last big push before the race. Fortunately, for my doctor and my coach I remained so exhausted for those three days that I could not even think about doing those workouts let alone actually attempt them.

So I sat on the couch out and was going crazy. Coach changed my taper and I trust my coach so I went with it. I have to say I attempted to do most of the workouts. I have felt wiped all week. Lots of ups and downs. Still tired. Still frustrated. But today I finished the last workout, got a massage, and am ready to do what I can on race day. Hope my coach knows something........