The Year of Frustrating Sickness continues

2011: in like a flu, out like a chest cold?

The reason I haven't been writing much lately (or running much lately) is that soon after Thanksgiving I came down with a pretty nasty chest cold.  I did manage my Sunday night run (speedwork) and my Tuesday night run (same speedwork), but Tuesday night I noticed that I was coughing a lot afterward.  Wednesday, I needed to take the day off work, which is virtually unheard of for me.  So that was a cue that things were not okay.  The cold stuck around for the next few days: it was one of those ones where you feel better one day, then tired again the next.  So I decided not to run.

The basic rule of running when sick is that you are okay to run if the cold is from your neck up (so a head cold is okay, even if unpleasant) and not okay to run from the neck down (i.e., in your chest).  I knew that I should take it easy and mostly I did.  But I also knew that at some point, I was going to have to go running again.

I got out this Wednesday, so it had been a week of no running at all, which was lousy!  I did some easy speedwork (this might sound like an oxymoron, but it was not a very long distance or amount).  Admittedly, I did not feel 100%, but I did make it through the workout without falling off the treadmill.  Same thing for Thursday.  I decided to go ahead and do the next half-marathon that was on Sunday (yesterday).

This one was the Holiday Half-Marathon, which is a one-way that goes from Madeira Beach to Largo.  The course was meh, I felt.  At least it was overcast so it wasn't exposed and sunny, because I think that it would have been pretty killer in those conditions. I felt cautiously optimistic about the it, thinking that possibly with the time off, I had a chance for a good time. 

And I think that I would have had a chance for a good time, too, if it weren't for this pesky chest cold that REFUSES TO DIE!  So I got through the first two miles in relatively good time, then realized that I was not feeling well.  I walked for a bit and discovered that my heart rate was much too high.  Blerg.  So walk/run it was.  For the whole rest of the half-marathon.  It seemed like one hundred million miles, although my time was actually not horribly dreadful considering the circumstances and that I was walk/running.

In fact, my time was still better than it was for the Oak Tree back in September.  Me sick > me running hills.  Sad but true.

I think that there were some good things to take from this experience.  First, I was glad that I had run into adversarial conditions last summer because I had strategies for coping with this en route.  I decided to run divide my intervals into 0.65, so 5%, then run for 0.55 and recover for 0.1.  Obviously, it worked well enough to get me through the course and I wasn't even the last person.  I'm not sure that I would have known what to do if I hadn't had to complete such runs last summer.  So this was a good thing.

Second, I feel like I am ready and raring to go for a half-marathon.  It was the illness that stopped me this time.  So here's hoping that the next half (January in Clearwater) goes better.  I think that it will, too, because I will have some hill practice time between then and now while I am in Canada for the holidays.  The Boxing Day race in Hamilton has a few nasty ones, so if I can get some hill work in, that should be useful for both.  The next half involves the Causeway (i.e., one giant hill).

Third, I am half-way through the Halfathon!  Which is totally cool.  Only the equivalent of one marathon to go now.  Also, I was happy with this most recent training plan, so I will modify it for the next race and see how that goes.

Fourth, I am incredibly glad that at no point yesterday did I lie down in a ditch and take a nap next to the race course, even though that was very tempting.  Victory!

So much better

So today's run was over the Threshold of Ick: it was in the low 80s with over 80% humidity.  The dew point was right around 75F.  And you know what?  It really didn't feel so bad.  Which tells you just how bad the weather was this summer.  Don't get me wrong: I was very sweaty and I definitely had to push (and my time was nothing to write home about), but it was at least manageable and not, to choose an example at random, 100% humidity like at the start of the month.

I was going to go this morning and make up for last week's long run but I was still tired.  It was a very tiring weekend.  And so, I decided that I would just follow the schedule from here on out and not try and make up last week's run.  It should be fine, I didn't miss anything too crucial on the schedule.  Last week was 10 miles, but next week is 10 miles too as the long run, so I will just do it then (this week is 8 miles, so that will be Sunday).

Today was 4.5 miles.  I ran pretty well throughout, I think, even though my actual speed was slow.  That was one of my goals because I'm getting fed up with walking.  And I succeeded!  Except for the part where someone had his dog off-leash and the dog came up and said hi to me.  Then I walked so as not to completely freak out the dog.  Unavoidable walk.