Weight Tracker

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Sickness!

Ugh. Ok. So I haven't posted in a while, cause I got socked with the sickness and I'm trying really hard to bounce back from it. My last run was my Saturday long run. I'm not gonna lie it was a rough run. It was cold again, and windy (why is always windy on my long run day?!)

As soon as I started out I felt like it was going to be a battle. I had not hydrated enough before the run, so I was constantly sipping at my camel back. Yeah I know I look like a dork but man am I ever grateful for how much water that thing carries. The wind was a factor right away. It was hitting me head on and sometimes sideways, gusting strong enough to knock me sideways a bit.

I noticed something wonky was going on with my phone when it didn't chime in for mile one until almost where the mile two mark should have been. It also said I was running a 19:20 min/mile. Which I most certainly was not. (I'm relatively sure I was running right around a 12 min/mile at this point.) I figured it had difficulty picking up the GPS or something, but that it'd work itself out (or I could adjust it later at home.)

Once I turned onto the Canal path, the wind died down a bit, and also shifted to slightly behind me, so that was good. I was super worn out from the first "mile" though, so I slowed up a bit to let myself recover. Really this whole section was just "keep moving forward. Stop thinking so much."

Then somewhere around mile three(ish), disaster struck. My music inexplicably stopped. I pulled my phone off my arm to fiddle with it, and actually ended up taking a short walk break trying to fix it, before giving up, strapping my phone back to my arm and thinking "Well at least it'll still tell me my pace and milage", except it didn't. Somehow I had completely locked up my phone.

I think not having my music really took a toll on me during this run. I had nothing to do but think about how awful I was feeling. And by mile five I was feeling pretty awful. It was a new kind of awful though. This time I wasn't feeling it in my joints, or really in my legs or lungs. I just felt tired, sluggish, like every step was extra work. I chalked it up to my increased weekly milage combined with not having my music to distract me, and pushed on.

By the time I hit the uphill portion at the end of my run, I was playing serious head games to keep myself moving. "Just get up this section" "Just to that tree" "Just make it out of the village"At one point I passed some oblivious teens that were walking side by side taking up the entire sidewalk. I said "excuse me" as I skirted them on the edge of the side walk. I kind heard them yelling after I passed, but I'm not sure what they were yelling, or if it was really at me (I was the only other one on the sidewalk though.) I'm going to pretend they were yelling encouragement.

Right when I was hitting the hardest part of the uphill section (for me), my dad drove by, and slowed down to see how I was doing. I flashed him the thumbs up and a smile and dug in just a little bit harder to keep moving.

I took my usual walk break right around mile 8, which is at the very top of the uphill, before heading into a short steep down and then up. I just never have it in my legs to do that steep uphill at that point. Right around here my feet were bothering me. My knees and hips were fine but my arches ached a little with every step, especially on downhills. It also felt like I was running really slowly, but I don't know for sure.

Once I turned into my parents neighborhood I made the decision to try to tack on some extra distance and get close to 10 miles for this run. I turned down a street a couple streets before my parents street and did a little loop around that block and back to the road that leads to my parents street. I wasn't sure how much extra distance it was, but at that point it was all I could add.

Pushing through to the "finish line" took a lot of gritted teeth, but I finished. I walked about half a block to my parents house and practically collapsed on the floor.

One hot bath, shower, stretch session and dinner later, I was feeling better, except for a persistent slightly sore throat. My legs felt tired, but none of the soreness stuck around long.

The sore throat developed into a full blown cold however. I'm not sure if I was actually sick on the run, or if the cold weather I was running in contributed to the cold. Who knows. The effect is that I'm down for the count right now. I did not run Sunday or Monday, and I may or may not run tonight. I'm hoping to get better by Thursday, so i can get a couple decent runs in before I have  the Color Vibe 5k on Sunday, and then it's nothing but short runs until the Half the next week.



1 comment:

  1. Boo to feeling terrible during a run. I'm sure you were already sick when you started which could explain it. Have fun at the 5K!
    You've got the half!

    ReplyDelete