Sunny? Not!

I survived another long run.  Actually, the first 12 miles of this run were the best I've had pain-wise in a LONG time.  The last five miles?  Not so much.  More on that later.  The weather website said that it would be around 50 degrees with sunshine this morning for our 10 am start time.  They were wrong.  It was 37, drizzling, windy, and cloudy.  Yuck. 

Wes, dad, Tim, Kathy, Bill, and I were all running together today.  We set out for the 17-mile Tunnelton/Buddha/Bedford loop.  The same one I ran last week (monster hills), only without the 3 tacked-on miles at the end.  Dad and Wes had on shorts and a t-shirt.  Tim and Kathy had on shorts and long sleeves. I had on capri tights, a t-shirt, and arm warmers.  Bill had on long tights, long sleeves, a jacket, and a hat.  With the exception of dad, we were all wearing gloves.  There was a lot of banter between the heavily- and lightly-dressed groups.  Bill warned the short sleeve wearers that they would freeze once the rain came in.  Those in short sleeves mocked that Bill would be burning up on the hills.  In the end, I was comfortable. I took my gloves and arm warmers on and off throughout, but was never miserable.

My right-sided pain was there from the get-go, but it was strangely less severe.  It didn't spread to my back.  Just a real focal spot at the bottom of my right rib cage.  Around the 12 mile mark, though, I began to notice I was having pain on the left, too.  It was in my upper abdomen at this point.  And this happens sometimes, but usually the right side gives me more grief.  By the 13 mile mark, the pain in the left had moved lower, almost where you'd expect the ovary is.  It was stabbing.  Gripping.  It was bad, and it slowed me down markedly.  At this point, I really couldn't feel the right-sided pain anymore.  I don't know if it left or if it was simply overshadowed by the intense, stabbing pain on the left.  The left-sided pain did not stop until I stopped running.  But, anyway, I survived. 

The fact that it was so bad on the left, and so low, makes me wonder if a slipping rib could cause something like that.  The pain on the right fits with that perfectly, but I'm confused about my left-sided pain.  Anyway--I'll have my colonoscopy tomorrow, and that will be at least one step closer to finding out what's wrong.

A word of advice:  running a 17 miler while also taking laxatives in preparation for a colonoscopy is probably not a very good idea.  My apologies to all those trees.