Attack of the Killer Migraine, er, Virus

Yesterday was an unexpected downer.  After a fairly long, brick-filled weekend of training in Flagstaff, AZ, I was slated for an easy swim in the AM.  During the swim, I started to feel a little hungover (of course without cause, other than a long run the previous evening).  Drinking water didn't help.  I left the pool early due to a splitting headache with nausea.  I figured the obvious: dehydration.  Work today didn't start until 3pm, so I went home and hydrated like a fool (lessons of early college years gone by were not lost  ).  Hydration didn't help, and I was feeling pretty wretched every time I stood up, so by lunchtime, I called out of work.

Next guess was that I had a BAMF migraine.  So despite nausea, I threw down some Advil and caffeine, which eventually helped.  A head full of medical factoids leads one to contemplate all sorts of heinous possibilities, but I reined it in.  It was a migraine, plain and simple.  When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras.  Unless you're in Africa.

Haven't had a migraine since late teens.  But it's suddenly time to figure out how to avoid 'em.  Realistically, I did a bunch of stressful things in the last 48 hours, and one of them, or some of them in combo, was/were the trigger:

--3 Hr. Mt. Bike race Saturday, followed by 20 minute run
--Long hypothermic bike ride on Sunday in Flagstaff, AZ: 4.25 hrs in 50 degrees and rain.
--Long, normothermic car ride back to Tucson.
--Long, sweaty 1hr 22 min run Sunday night right before bed with only water, and probably not enough. (Tucson was mid->high 80s, immediately post-rain, which is to say that it was so farking humid that I was growing armpit and crotch moss)
--Not enough fluid after run.
--Generally more physical stress with IM build (big surprise there)
--Not enough sleep lately (not sure that one's getting better until retirement)
--Just used Infinit for the first time.

Hopefully it wasn't that last one, as Infinit worked quite well in all other ways.  I think its ingredients are pretty simple, so I hope not.

Most of it was dehydration, I think coupled with opposite temp stresses (haven't really done alternating hypothermic and hyperthermic bricks). I think it's easy to forget that it takes more than a few glasses of water at night to rehydrate after a real sweatfest.  But there's no denying that some things trigger unpleasant headaches: diet soda; anything with nitrites; anything with MSG.  Dehydration may be the next item, or it may be something else.

A natural part of aging, I suppose: The dietary road grows narrower.  But the horizon grows broader. 

Edit--A coworker described exactly these symptoms a few days later.  His wife got it, too.  Seems that the most likely cause was a virus.  But I'd still say that the extreme training left me susceptible.