Cough Hack Cough

It's so easy to get frustrated with this running thing. For the most part, things have been going pretty good this year, but all it takes is a couple of bad runs and the next thing you know, you're questioning all of it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, everyone in the house has been sick over the past 2 weeks or so, and I was unable to escape the wrath of the virus. While I didn't get the throw-up version of it, I did get a good congestion going on and a nice on again/off again fever.

While this hasn't stopped me from running completely, it has made some of the runs much more difficult than they should be. If I go back through my logs, I can see that this is just how I react when I get congested lungs. The runs suffer. It's like 1st gear is OK, 2nd gear is not too bad, but anything higher than that, and I really struggle. Oh yeah, and the gas mileage starts to suffer a bit as well. I just get extremely fatigued much quicker than I normally should. OK. I think I probably took that analogy a little bit too far. It won't happen again.

So last week on Friday I did manage 17 miles on the treadmill, but unlike the previous weeks run, this run left me feeling weak and, well, sick. Saturday and Sunday I managed ugly runs of 7 miles each, which was much less than I wanted to do over the weekend, but based on how I was feeling, it was probably more than I should have been doing. By the time Sunday night rolled around, I felt like a 50 year old menopausal women..hot flashes one second, followed quickly by the cold shivers. Luckily, I got a great nights sleep and woke up on Monday feeling pretty good.

Monday's 9 mile run was nothing to write home about though. It actually was just more of the same. Started out feeling OK, but just got extremely gassed after about 5 miles. I forced myself through the 9, but it was not enjoyable. Today was probably my best run in a while with 9 miles in the morning at a 6:24 pace, but things returned to form in the afternoon with a miserable 7 miler.

I realize that the smart thing to do now would be to back off a little and let things return to normal, but that probably isn't going to happen. The legs feel great and all the little nagging injuries that were bothering me so much a few weeks ago, have just gone away as I start to get back into the routine. Since all I'm doing is base-building at this point, I feel like suffering through a few runs right now isn't the worst thing in the world. It will just make next week, when I'm back to being healthy, that much easier. That's the plan anyway.

Here's last week:

Mon: 9 Miles @ 6:20 pace
Tues: 12 Miles @ 6:40 Pace
Wed: 10 Miles on highschool indoor track - starting to feel sick
Thurs: 8 Miles
Fri: 17 Miles @ 6:40 Pace
Sat: 7 Miles
Sun: 7 Miles

Weekly Total: 70 Miles
YTD Total: 261 Miles