I know it's been a while since I last posted. I went back to work on January 5 after having two weeks off, and finding the time to write about my runs became difficult. A lot actually happened over the last three weeks. My training was going great -- no missed runs, my pace was slowly getting better, the weather was getting slightly less freezing... But then disaster struck on January 16 when I came home from work with a cough. The next day I had a full-blown fever and I was bed-ridden with what appeared to be the flu. It had been years (maybe even more than a decade) since I caught the flu, and this one hit me hard. The 17th and 18th were the worst days, but for several days after I was still feeling the effects of the sickness. I called out of work on the 21st and 22nd. Needless to say, I wasn't able to run during that whole time, and so I fell more than a week behind my schedule. This was a real bummer, but I knew I still had time to make up for those lost runs. The comeback began tonight with a 1.8 miler in the rain. I'll need to hit it hard these next couple weeks to get back on track, but it's entirely possible; the Encinitas Mile is still about seven weeks away.
First, a quick rundown of the first half of January, prior to getting sick. My last post featured the coldest run I'd ever gone on. Thankfully, after that, the weather "warmed" up quite a bit. Some nights it was still in the 30s, but once you've run in the 20s, anything above that is comfortable. It even got up to the 50s a couple nights, which might as well have been summer weather!
Saturday, January 3, 2015:
Distance: 1.48 miles
Time: 15:48
Location: Ottawa-Apple Valley-Yucca Loma loop
Monday, January 5, 2015:
Distance: 1.51 miles
Time: 17:21
Location: Yucca Loma to Rio Vista School and back
Thursday, January 8, 2015:
Distance: 1.53 miles
Time: 16:14
Location: Yucca Loma to Rio Vista School and back
Friday, January 9, 2015:
Distance: 1.75 miles
Time: 18:24
Location: Yucca Loma-Apple Valley-Powhatan-Cochise loop
Tuesday, January 13, 2015:
Distance: 1.84 miles
Time: 19:31
Location: Cochise-Powhatan-Apple Valley-Yucca Loma loop
Friday, January 16, 2015:
Distance: 1.84 miles
Time: 19:41
Location: Yucca Loma-Apple Valley-Powhatan-Cochise loop
And tonight's comeback run:
Distance: 1.8 miles
Time: 20:18
Location: Cochise-Powhatan-Apple Valley-Yucca Loma loop
After nine days of inactivity and misery due to the flu, today was the first day I felt normal enough to attempt a run. And it happened to be raining. But I wasn't going to let a little drizzle stop me. Missing so many runs means I need to run each day I have available, and if I do that I should be caught up in a pretty short amount of time. Today was crucial. So after Nathan went to bed I geared up and waited for the rain to lighten a little bit. And once it did I was off, ready or not. Luckily it wasn't a long run (1.8 miles). The 2+ mile runs start next. I ran the same route I ran on the 9th, 13th, and 16th, before I got sick. The rain was definitely light, so it was not much of a factor. In fact it acted more like a refreshing mist. It started to pick up only once, when I was about half a mile into the run. I did worry that it would start to come down strong, but luckily it died back down to a light sprinkle the rest of the way. As far as my performance, I was slower than the last time I ran, but I chalk that up to recovering from the flu. I still have a lingering cough, which the run almost made worse, so that wasn't fun. But overall I felt good and back to normal. I'm definitely ready to start making progress again. And hopefully that was my only bump in the road as I prepare for Encinitas. Tonight's rainy run was a fun one, and it officially kicks off my comeback.
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