Hello gang! Checking in again with updates...
My training was going great, I was running religiously and I was posting some great times. My pace even hit 12:45 per mile, which is lightning for me. My heart problems had all but cleared up, I'd been off medication for the first time in my entire life... I was feeling awesome!
Then I noticed my times were getting slower, I was getting more fatigued, was having a harder time breathing... I figured it was because my distances were getting longer and my body was just adjusting to distance runs. I figured my diet was off with either not enough protein or carbs or I wasn't fueling right during the runs. I ran my first 10k, and it was rough, but I did it... I was super, amazingly, unbelievably proud of myself.
Literally, the next day, I got out of bed and went to stand up, and I fell flat on my face. I had this burning, throbbing pain on my left thigh. I saw that what I thought was a bad deerfly bite had grown to the size of my whole upper thigh, was hot to the touch, had blisters all around it, and was so painful I couldn't stand. I went about my day hoping it'd clear up, but it didn't. The pain was so bad I was throwing up, I had a fever and chills, I couldn't focus... So off to the ED I went. They diagnosed the bite as a tick bite that I had an extremely bad reaction to... I had necrotizing fasciitis around the bite itself, septicemia, and endocarditis. The doctor couldn't believe that in 24 hours, I'd gone from running a 10k, to barely able to stand or be lucid in the ED.
And, of course, with all that came the big diagnosis... Lyme Disease.
(This was after 2 days treatment and bedrest, and you can't see the pink "bullseye" which covered my whole thigh. Overall, the inflamed/infected area was 24 inches long, 19 inches wide)
It's been about a month and I'm struggling with the recovery, and my running has suffered. I've dropped from being able to do the 10k, to struggling with just a mile. Some days I feel great, other days... The joint pain, the mental fogginess and confusion, and the rest of the fun stuff that comes with Lyme is just a lot. I'm still going to make it to Wine and Dine because I'm confident that, if I need to, I can walk it... But my realities for how I will perform has changed pretty dramatically. I'm fighting through it and I'm starting to see my times swing up and I'm focusing on making at least 10k steps per day, and I'm optimistic. But I think my big performance race will be the GSC, not W&D, like I'd hoped.
This is one of his newer plans, I think because the jump from Novice 1 to Intermediate was so huge, so I haven't had the chance to try it yet because it didn't exist when I was training for my last few half marathons. In the past I used the Intermediate plan and dropped one of the days so it was 4 days per week (plus I like the dedicated speedwork/tempo run day), but I could definitely see using Novice 2 in the future. I hope you meet your goals! This Link is Amazing!! Thank you!
The amount of support coming from this forum is overwhelming. I can't thank you all enough for taking the time to respond and to remind me of the bigger picture.
It completely makes sense now lol. 
Excitement! Bring on the jeans/long-sleeved shirt weather and pumpkin spice lattes (or pumpkin-flavored anything). 
I'm sure not everyone is like that but it bugs me enough that I haven't joined.
