Wednesday, November 23, 2005

USARA Nationals Sickness

Racing in the swamp at USARA Nationals was an interesting experience. Most of the race I was able to block out any type of thoughts about what could happen to me from drinking the swamp water or having open wounds and being in the swamp water for 19 hours straight. It's quite scary actually. Since the race on Nov 4th in Tampa my teammates RVG and Jen Segger have suffered severely. Both have had crazy fevers with debilitating headaches that got so bad they ended up at the ER... and on an IV! Scary. There are posts on the Florida adventure racing forums about many athletes coming down with these types of sicknesses. Ryan ended up with a severely swollen and infected leg as well. I hope they get better soon. Here is a picture of my legs a few days after the race, it really doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea -

***UPDATED***
Turns out about 1/2 the teams that races have become sick. The race directors just sent this message out to all the teams. Apparently everyone has come down with an infection called leptospirosis that you get when you are exposed to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals.

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Get better soon DART, we'll be cheering for you in Baja!

10:44 PM  
Lorna said...

I just read an article about cases of leptospirosis in USARA Nationals Participants. Sounds pretty serious.
http://www.trailblazerar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1187&sid=7e4f2103973e9a8c3d0965eef31cfa63

10:11 AM  
Hart said...

Thanks Lorna. The race directors actually sent that same message out via email to all the teams that raced. I just hope I'm not one of the cases that show no symptoms.

3:07 PM  
Lorna said...

Article from the Atanta Journal Constitution. Not exactly pro-AR. I think this article belies the belief that all publicity is good publicity.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/sports/1205/16lepto.html

9:59 AM  

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