The Effects of Illness

Last week I learned a bit more about how illness - even an apparently mild cold - can effect fitness. I'd had a cold over the previous weekend, and having missed most of my runs, I was looking forward to getting stuck in again last week.

However, things didn't turn out as I had hoped. On Monday I wanted to run 10 miles, but felt very sluggish and slow, and cut the run short to 6.2miles.

Found a great new route across a field and over train tracks!

 On Tuesday, I had to pop in to work in the afternoon, when I normally would have done a bike ride. I decided to cycle to work, as it's only about 3.5 miles away, and I did, but my legs felt really heavy, and I found a long uphill more difficult than usual.

I did my usual 4 mile early morning run on Wednesday, and was a bit slower than usual, at 8.56 min/miles pace. I thought I was almost back to normal, but then on Friday I had a terrible headache. This was a product of all the congestion in my head , and something I often get after a cold.

Adfter a lot of humming and haaing, I did run on Friday, but only after taking ibuprofen, and it wasn't a great run, at 9.05 min/mile pace for 5 miles.

Later I listened to Jillian Michaels' podcast, in which she criticised people for continuing to workout when ill. I knew she was right. Really, what good are you doing yourself? I just didn't want my mileage count for June to be too badly affected - how ridiculous!

So when I still had a terrible headache all weekend, I didn't run. I did have a little bike ride, but I spent a lot of  time in a dark room, waiting to get better (and watching the UK athletic Olympic Trials - great!).

Now I'm feeling more human, but not back to 100% yet. So I'm going to give myself a break, and not push myself too hard. Logically I know that this is not the time to train hard - hopefully I've got plenty more weeks of injury and illness-free running ahead, before I do any races.

In total last week, I ran 3 times, which amounted to 15.2 miles, and cycled 16.1 miles. Not bad for a bit of a wiped out week!