50 days, 13 hours to go...
Something happened this week that hasn't happened all year...I got sick. I'm not sure what it is precisely, but after a few hectic days early in the week of humidity, rain, and a stressful forced march to get to class on time, I began feeling under the weather on Wednesday. Thursday proved the worst day, and I woke up this morning still feeling a bit peaked.
My first instinct was to take off for the day and not worry about any training, but after having some breakfast I felt well enough to attempt a little experiment.
Friday's have typically involved a track workout, but I didn't feel up to that today. So instead I elected to try some hill-intervals on the treadmill and see where it went.
A treadmill has several advantages when attempting to train when sick: you're always close to help if your illness takes a bad turn; you have considerable control over how hard and long the exercise bout will last; and generally the speed at which you run is slower than during regular running (at least it is with me).
The primary disadvantage of using a treadmill when sick is the lack of convective cooling which usually occurs during regular running; in other words, you don't have the "wind" generated by your forward motion blowing across your skin to cool the body and aid in sweat evaporation. As such one typically becomes very hot and sweaty very fast when running on a treadmill at room temperature. The lack of convective cooling can make usual training paces feel more difficult.
Thankfully, I wasn't looking to go too fast today, and kept things easy (my preferred effort ;)...). The idea was to try running for 5-10 minutes, and if I felt okay then to continue until I reached 5km. I did several hill intervals along the way--one of them up to 8% incline--because the first third of the marathon course involves several climbs, some as high as 200ft and a deal longer to the top. As such, today's run sought to develop adaptations necessary for climbing several hills in succession. This wasn't the first time during this build-up I've done this on a run, but today was one of the first where it provided the primary focus. Luckily it wasn't too hard, and was something I could do while not feeling great.
Interestingly I felt better after the workout, and was able to go on a long "thinking walk" later in the afternoon. I've noticed that sometimes it happens that going for a run can make the symptoms of feeling sick go away. Of course there are other times when it makes those symptoms worse (I remember one 8km race with the flu in particular). That's why if I feel up to it, I'll try going for run even if I feel under the weather. If 5 or 10 minutes go by and I still feel like crap (or worse), then I take it as a sign that today needs to be a day of rest.
It's evening now, and while I feel a bit hungry I'm also feeling much better than yesterday. I didn't get to do a track workout this week, but that isn't overly concerning. I managed a fair bit of volume earlier in the week, and feel good about things generally. So we'll give it a try next Friday and see how things go. Only 50 days, 13 hours to go!
Happy Friday, friends :)
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