A slight turn of events...

Today, my timing was impeccable. I turned back 30 minutes into a ride with Sam and Chris to get to the apartment just in time to have an unexpected visit with my ceramic friend who shares his room with the shower and the sink.

Yeah, that's right. We got diarrhea. Lots of it. Today's weak, measly ride was one of my hardest to date, since all my stomach muscles are regularly tightening and providing more than general discomfort. Duffy had it worst over the weekend, putting in 16 hours of straight sleep with some vomiting beforehand. Sam had one memorable night, and I've been under-the-weather for a few days now.

Sometimes we'll be off in separate parts of the apartment, catch a whiff of something truly awful, possibly dying or rotten, and scream out for confirmation that someone is still alive in the bathroom. Or things will be quiet (maybe we're reading) and all of a sudden you wonder if a faucet somewhere has broken (not far from the truth), or somebody has dumped a gallon of water onto the patio floor. The sounds and smells emanating from this particular restroom are horrifying.

I would have spared you such vivid descriptions, but it's become such a large part of daily life here over the past few days, it warranted a post and partially explains our lack of updates. Conversations about biking are replaced with conversations about Pepto Bismol. Emergency shopping trips for toilet paper have been successfully executed. For Duffy and I, diets have been stripped to bread, apples, bananas, and bottled water. Productive training has come to a standstill.

Our best theory to date is that Duffy and I were exposed to unexpectedly terrible tap water during the race weekend in the quiet resort town of Calpe, Spain.