Post-walk flu?

[firenze11]

I just finished my 60km weekend breast cancer walk yesterday. I feel great in terms of the cause and the walk itself, pretty good in terms of muscle soreness, it's definitely there and I'm walking stiffly, but it's nothing I can't handle. The one thing that is really weird is that today I feel utterly and completely awful. I feel like I have a mild flu or something. Can this happen after a long, endurance type thing?

I didn't get much sleep at all over the weekend. Last night I stayed at a friend's place and had to get up at 5 to catch a train back to school. So I was tossing and turning all night worrying about getting up on time.

The first day of the walk I felt great, ate and drank and peed at every stop. I was big on bananas, carrots, and baked Lays. I felt like I couldn't get enough salt or bananas and the Lays never tasted salty enough. I drank plenty of water and switched off between that and Gatorade.

The second day, everything changed. I couldn't eat breakfast in the morning, I only barely got down a half of a bagel. I think I only ate at one rest stop, barely got my lunch down and hardly drank very much. I wasn't nauseous or anything, I just didn't want anything, I had to force everything. But I still peed quite a bit.

Today I feel very nauseous, headache-y, could barely eat a piece of toast for breakfast, and got motion sick for most of my 5 hour train ride (which is really unlike me). Then I had to go to class. Basically, I've been miserable.

I can't figure out if how I'm feeling is because I'm sick or because of something I did on the walk. Is it possible it was something I did on the walk?

I'd still do the walk again in a heartbeat, of course!

[OakLeaf]

I get like that when I'm hyponatremic, and the fact that your body was craving so much salt the first day seems like a clue. Were you sweating heavily? Try slamming some more Gatorade, maybe. (When I'm like that, 3 liters of Gatorade and the symptoms are gone in an hour or two.) Do you have any other symptoms that make you think it might be something infectious?

[firenze11]

Thanks OakLeaf. I wasn't sweating heavily on the walk but it was deceiving because it was raining for a good part of both days. Actually, though, it is completely possible that I drank too much water since I was peeing at every rest stop.

I'm still craving salt a lot. . .I just tried to eat a bowl of chicken noodle but it didn't taste salty enough to me so I added more when I was cooking (I've never done that before but I do often crave salt and use it whenever I want it because I have low blood pressure). Hmm maybe I am hyponatremic. Maybe it isn't good that I've been trying to push water today. I didn't get Gatorade at the store today because I didn't want to upset my stomach more with all that sugar but maybe I should go grab some and try it.

I don't really think I'm infectious, I've had plenty of stomach bugs/flu/food poisoning but I've never quite felt like this. It's more of a constant yucky feeling that hasn't gotten any worse but hasn't gotten any better today. I'm just feeling really really tired, nauseous but not vomiting, headachey, I don't have any GI issues other than feeling nausea, I don't have a fever.

[firenze11]

Well I musta been hyponatremic. After I read Oakleaf's response I ate two single serve bags of beef jerky and promptly went to bed. I'm guessing that and the chicken noodle soup helped. I woke up this morning feeling sooo much better. I was still a bit nauseous and headachy but it went away as the day progressed. Yesterday was really awful. Don't want to do that again.

Guess who is hiking out to find some Nuun this week?