Marathon Shmarathon

Hi.
Well, the marathon's off. SSMG's a mess. His heels still bother him and he fell off his motorcycle and got a hematoma which I call the alien that lives on the side of his thigh and keeps filling up with nasty puss. He's been walking around with the thing for weeks. Needless to say, no running. You can't, I've learned, run a marathon if you're not running.
Me? Why wouldn't I do it anyway you ask? After all that training? Two 20 mile runs? Good question. My second 20-miler and my last long run before tapering went horribly. It was a gorgeous 76 degrees out and I ran on the Coal Creek trail, 9.5 out and 10.5 back, was the plan. But you know when you just know it's gonna be a bad one? I stopped at mile 3 to use the bathroom at the park, which I knew would be my last chance on the run, and when I did, I realized I didn't have enough water to last through the whole run, so I would have to ration, and my stomach, which wasn't feeling too good that morning, wasn't feeling too good.
But 9.5 went okay. It was the turnaround that killed me. I was rationing my water, but it was f^&ing hot out and I was parched. My stomach was okay, but not great, and something just felt wrong. I kept stopping to walk hoping and praying that I'd be able to go on because it was do or die. If I couldn't get through 20 this final week, I couldn't get through 26 on marathon day. Not to mention, I had to get back to my car.
Back at the park with 3 miles left to get home my stomach acted up and I stuck my mouth under the faucet in the sink of what I would call an outhouse - one step above a porta potty - and drank about a gallon of water.
The next three miles were hell. My stomach, my legs, my motivation, nothing was going right. So at mile 19 I hit the car and gave up, wondering how the HELL I would ever get through another hour of running on race day. I don't care how many people are screaming and cheering for me, sometimes your body just rebels. And rebel, it did.
Came home and after throwing up several times, discussed the situation with SSMG. (Mind you, I was in a panic about throwing up thinking I had salmonella from contanimated water at the outhouse. Turns out, I was just sick from running so much.) After two days of deliberation we made the very hard decision not to run. I say "hard decision" but really I was so relieved that not a tear was shed. Instead, we changed our plane tickets and canceled the very expensive hotel reservations and re-routed to go to Savannah to visit SSMG's brother and sister in law.
I'm not sad, and as it turns out, we are in for next year. Oh my god. Another summer of training? We'll see. I can't fathom it at the moment since I did a half marathon last weekend and took so long they were practically closing down the course when I finished. My body seems to be saying, stop running. For that matter my body seems to be saying, stop exercising.
Winter is upon us here in Colorado, and hibernation is in the forecast.