Thursday, February 10, 2011

Last Week = Awesome. This week = Notsomuch.

I had such a great training week last week! 66 miles total.  Due to weather, I ended up on the treadmill for 6 miles Tuesday, 10 miles Wednesday, and 5 miles Thursday. Nothing too crazy - but great, solid runs.

Saturday was my 20 miler. Fabulous. Great company. Great run.

Sunday was my 25 miler. Fabulous. Great company. (Minus running buddy aka: Coach Scott being sick and bailing partway through...though he still drove his car around and checked in on me. So kind.) Also had my first practice eating real food (pb&j) during a run. It was awesome. I think the best part of ultra training is: solid food on the run. Love it!

No soreness whatsoever, despite my 45 mile weekend! Score! I was anticipating joint pain, etc. But, nada. Giant confidence boost! Legs were tired, but I truly felt fantastic.

I started feeling a little feverish, though. Monday I was sort of blah, then Tuesday I was down for the count. Realized I would not be running. Wednesday, same thing. No run, and was so sick I didn't even care. Fever, cough, headache, chills, body aches, you name it. No bueno. It was around this time I also realized that my 30 miles that is upcoming on Saturday (and 15 Sunday) is probably not happening. The really great part? I'm totally fine with that. I'm at a place in my training where I really truly get that these rest days that I wasn't anticipating aren't a bad thing. And that running merely to get my runs in, despite feeling completely awful, would do more harm than good. (Those were Coach Scott's words.) I've run before when "sick" - but this was the type of sick where even being upright wasn't happening. I mothered from the couch like a champ.

I'm happy to report that today I am beginning to feel better. Fever is mostly gone, I was actually able to be upright long enough to take a shower, do some stuff around the house, and to sit at the computer and write this. (I really did plan to update my blog earlier this week because I was so excited from my fantastic weekend of running! Darn sickness.) I'm still not sure how I feel about this weekend. I plan to pow-wow with Coach Scott tomorrow to decide what to do. I'm thinking with the way I feel today, by Saturday I should feel pretty great. I may not make it 30 miles (and, keep in mind, this would be my first time beyond 26.2, and I really want to give myself a fighting chance to finish feeling good) - but I'm ok with that.

It feels really awesome to be at a healthy place, mentally. Despite being a psycho planner, I'm very much at peace with the fact my training is getting turned upside down this week, and perhaps even into this weekend. There's no sense of doom or panic or anything else negative. I am very calm and happy about where I am. Cannot beat that feeling. 

I hope everyone is having a great week and that the sickness I had stays far far away from you.

As a side note, I have started fundraising again with Team in Training. This time around, I'm raffling an Apple iPad (yes, iPad, not iPod)! If you're interested in purchasing a raffle ticket, please click the logo on the right. Thank you!