HTFU or stupid?

Bag it.

The most important priority for your body right now is healing. The race will set you back.

my $.02

I vote for skipping it; I don't think it's a HTFU issue.  Let's review the facts as you posted them:

• taking "demon-mad steroids"
• taking "two antibiotics"
• taking "other meds"
• "may have actually spread again today"
• "...but still they are open wounds"
• "I cannot let my body heat up without hurting"
• "I'll take a LOT of painkillers to try and dull my senses"

Do you really think it's a good idea to tax your body for 45 minutes in this condition?  Who knows how your body is going to react from the stress of the race AND the medications.  At the very least, consult your doctor before running. 

You've got more races ahead; sit this one out, heal up, and be as ready as you can for the next. 

R U KIDDING?

BAG IT and live to fight another day. 

Better yet-go volunteer for it!

x2

If you have to ask, you probably already know the answer.   

Don't do the race.  Besides the issues of overtaxing your body while it's trying to heal, it sounds like your appearance will scare off small children and livestock.

Actually, if you post some pics, I could use them as part of my poison ivy/poison oak awareness posters for the girl scouts that I make up for my wife's troops every year.

Another vote for skipping it. It's a 5K, there are PLENTY of 5k's to run through out the year. Heal up, get back into shape and hit it hard next time.

David

Wow, somewhere where my tagline (and life slogan) fits the situation perfectly. See below.

Could have used that about 21 years ago. When I went through Army Basic Training we were out in the field practicing our camouflage skills when someone found a whole patch of plants that were just perfect for blending into the local scenery. Most of us used these plants.

We had an inspection in front of the company commander. He walked down a couple of rows before stopping, walking to the front and addressing us: "do *any* of you idiots know what poison ivy looks like?". Yeah, pretty much the entire company was covered in the stuff.

Eight or nine went to the hospital. One poor bastard had a severe reaction to the ivy and then had a bad reaction to the medication they gave him for it. He was still in the hospital when we graduated two weeks later.

In my defense I'm from Chicago and had never seen the stuff before. My entire platoon was from North Dakota and gave me hell as the "city boy" while they all spent their lives in the woods.

I was lucky with no reaction what-so-ever. 

That's really bad advice.  It can be really bad and you can still think about racing.  It's hard to give up on races!!

Don't race.  Your body is under WAY too much stress to be racing this weekend.  You don't need to stress it out any more.  Rest and get over this and then think about racing when you are healthy. 

This picture is from my collection for the girl scout poison ivy demo

"It's only poison ivy" can be kind of severe.  Just saying...

I suspect that this thread is a "Look at how tough I am" or "Look at how dedicated I am to the sport" and is lacking in serious common sense.

Skip the race and don't volunteer until you've recovered.  I'd hate to get poison ivy from a participant/volunteer. 

Also keep in mind that some antibiotics make you more (much more) susceptible to sunburns, so you wouldn't want to be taking Tetracycline(?) and then spending an hour in mid-day sun (yea, by the time you wait to start, race, then hang around, it's easily an hour). 

Being able to recover is a sign of maturity. Racing with puss draining from your legs is gross. You make the call.

Just a few "myths" about poision ivy...

You cannot "spead" it from one wound to the other.  The stuff that comes out of the sores is not capable of speading the poision ivy.  Onlt he oil, urushiol in the plant can cause the rash.

The most likley cause of "speading" is that you did not get alol of the oil off.  Soap and water is often not enough.  You need a urushiol remover soap (there are a lot out there).

The other nasty part of poision ivy is that the oil can remain on clothes for YEARS.  So i oyu were to get it on a pair of pants and then put them back on the next week (even after washing) you could re-contract the  rash again.

I have my fair share of scars from this little plant.  My advice is to skip the run.

Throw out anything that came in contact with the poison ivy.

A friend had a nasty reaction while weeding his back yard one fall. The next summer he noticed the gloves he was wearing from the incident were still in his garage and thought he'd take the "precaution" of throwing them away. I put "precaution" in quotes cause, you guessed it, he picked them up with his bare hands for the 10 seconds it took to get to the trash bin and had another out break just as bad as the first one.

Neither - it's taken from an educational site, titled www.poison-ivy.org/, appropriately enough.  The last time I used it, I hid it behind a screen with a warning that it should not be looked at (I have less horrifying images as well).  So naturally, nearly everyone went ahead and looked at it.

ETA it's safe to click on the link - most of the stuff is how to recognize poinson ivy, and how poison ivy causes problems.  To get to the "good stuff" you have to look around, and it does give you some warning.