After an incredible day of women’s semifinal hockey and Canada qualifying for the Gold Medal round (yay!), despite several invitations to celebrate Canada’s win at Swiss House, I headed straight back to the hotel to get some sleep before the next day’s trek to the mountains.
I woke up early feeling even worse than the day before, but I was determined not to let the flu make me miss any events. So I dragged myself out of bed, popped some DayQuil and left the hotel to head to Krasnaya Polyana.
The ladies giant slalom event was scheduled to start at 11am, but when I arrived I found out that they had moved it up to 9am due to the rainy weather. So by the time I got to Rosa Khutor (at 11am), I was just in time to catch the last few runs.
The stands were almost completely empty and, sadly, there wasn’t much support for the athletes. I think I was one of only about five Canadian fans.
It would be another two hours before the next round of runs began, and although I had an umbrella I was starting to get pretty wet. I was feeling worse and worse (and worse) by the minute, and was starting to get very cold. I realized that I was getting hit with a fever. : ( So I made the difficult decision to bail on the second half of the event and head back to the coast.
Making the best of the flu at Rosa Khutor
I tried to make the best of it (cuz it’s not like I’m here – in Russia, at the Olympics – everyday), so instead of taking the bus down the mountain, I hopped on the gondola. I was hoping to get some photos of the views but thanks to the rain, all the windows were fogged up and all the seats were wet. (This day didn’t seem to be getting any better, but in my feverish daze I was rolling with it…)
Once I reached the bottom of the gondola, I got myself to the train station and hopped on the next train back to the city. By the time I got back to my hotel it was 2pm. I got out of my wet clothes, into my pyjamas, took some Advil and fell into bed to sleep off the fever.
When I woke up, it was 10am the next morning! I had slept for 20 hour straight! Holy horse!!
Knock on wood, I’ve been relatively lucky in keeping healthy during my travels – just a couple work trips where I’ve caught a bug. Looking at your bug, I’m thinking the 20 hours was needed to allow your immune system to go ballistic on it.
The 20 hours sleep definitely made a difference. It’s been over a month now and I’ve still got a bit of a cough. It was a nasty bug indeed!
Oh wow.. that’s harsh! Assume it’s just a cold bug that you can’t shake?