The Cold's Hangover

This cold has knocked me on my ass for the entire month of November.

Exhibit 1 (Training Journal):  There are a lot of "zero" miles and " :-| " faces in my entries this month.

(waaahhhh, waaahhhh, feel sorry for me feel sorry for me feel sorry for me, waaahhhh)

I've had enough! And my last chance race is only 2 weeks away.  The way I see it, I have two choices: (1) come back slowly, carefully, wait for the cold's last remnants to pass before re-engaging in hard core running; or (2) train as I would if I was feeling 100%, cold be damned, and hope that my body catches up.

On Wednesday, I made up my mind. The scene, my favorite treadmill, "runch" time. The first time I've felt up to running in weeks. I start out nice, easy, slow. Feels okay, so I slowly speed up. Then my iPhone decides to shuffle onto the best running song of all time: Closer by Nine Inch Nails (great beat, and so angry). I sail up to goal race pace, hold it as log as I can (half a mile, oh gawwwd...). Slow for a few minutes and crank it back up for another half mile.

But this is about where I expected to be based on how I was feeling: shitty. Feeling great, or feeling shitty, I have to execute the final two weeks of this training plan if I have any hope of meeting my time goal in Vegas. So I am running (within reason) the way I ran in September and October when I was feeling great.

Keep your fingers crossed that this doesn't result in a cold resurgence!

Week 11: 38.25 miles
Monday 11/12 - 1 mile walking, exhausted.
Tuesday 11/13 - 1 mile walking, felt good.
Wednesday 11/14 - first run back, fartlek on the treadmill, 30" for 4.0 miles.
Thursday 11/15 - mile repeats: 3.5 miles with 2 miles at 6:48 on the treadmill.
Friday 11/16 - easy run: 6 hilly miles in Balboa Park, 9:00 average pace.
Saturday 11/17 - tempo run: 6.25 miles with 5 miles at 7:20 pace. Hardest training session of the entire cycle.
Sunday 11/18 - long run: 16.5 miles in Del Mar with 1500 elevation climb, 9:00 average pace.

two little runners (Kristen)