Mid-Week Musings (Sick Edition)

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon, Running and tagged with Marathon Training, Phoenix Marathon, Running, Sickness February 25, 2015

It’s Wednesday and that means

DAYS TIL PHOENIX MARATHON!!!

Okay, I’m gonna keep it real.

I’m hella nervous.

Not because of any time goal or even weather (it’s supposed to rain!) but because I’m STILL sick! UGH! Yesterday, I ran 4 miles with my run club and finished the run coughing up a storm. Everyone stared at me like a crazy person 😦

The cough isn’t even the worst part; my ears have fluid in them and it’s been making my head hurt like whoa. That is the worst.

Mine’s a cold/cough/allergy combo special

Yesterday at work, I went to our school nurse and of course she gave me the dreaded, “I don’t recommend you run.” Jajajajaja!! Not run!?! Blasphemy!! Especially since I feel like I rocked my training this time and besides this sickness, am feeling the most confident I’ve felt going into a race.

But this cough is for real. The ear pain is for real. And I need to accept that I might have to re-evaluate my goals.

It’s hard.

I talked to my husband about this at length last night and we both agreed that it’d be best if I go into to it as “normally” as possible. Let’s pretend there’s nothing wrong. 😀 But if I start to feel shitty and the body is not responding, then I’ll slow things down and reassess. And hopefully not DNF.

I’m happy to report that I haven’t cried. I’ve been totally mature (kinda) about the situation and I know that it’s something I can’t control. I can rest as much as I can, but beyond that, there’s not much else I can do.

Every morning I keep hoping that I’ll magically wake up 100%. One can hope.

–How do you handle sicknesses around race time?

–Any magic remedies you recommend?

Week 15 Phoenix Marathon Training Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Running and tagged with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Marathon, Marathon Training, Phoenix Marathon, Running, Taper February 23, 2015

This is it! I’m officially on my LAST training week of Phoenix Marathon. WOW.

Last week was a tough, tough week health wise. We were all sick and dad was out of town the entire week and this mommy was exhausted. I tried my hardest to make it all about resting and recovering for me. I’ve been soooooo sick and the taper crazies have been at an all time high as paranoia over whether I’ll get better by Saturday lingers in my head. My kids were also sick last week and either one or both of them stayed home from school the entire week. 😦

Luckily, it looks like we’re all on the mend. Fingers crossed that we all continue on the healthy train.

Okay, last Sunday and Monday I did nothing but Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. My knee was still being funny and that along with my cough was stressing me out big time. Monday, I was off from work because of President’s Day so I was able to just hangout at home with my kids (who were also sick that day).

Tuesday, I mustered up energy to meet up with my run club for my usual 5 miler. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be considering how awful I felt. It might’ve been just what I needed to make me feel better 🙂

Wednesday I was supposed to go to track but I was just not feeling good. It had been a long night with my kids, my daughter especially, who was sick and wanted to sleep with mommy. I took a rest day and planned for a run on Thursday.

I was able to get in a pretty decent 4 miler the next day. Again, I felt good despite lack of sleep and a stuffy head.

Fridays are my usual rest days and my husband came home from his work trip 😀 I was SOOO excited for him to be home. I don’t function well without him and then on top of that, being sick made him being gone that much more tough to handle.

I managed to get a decent night’s sleep and my run the next morning, Saturday, was planned for 6 a.m. (sleeping in for me!). I met up with my run club and talked with a few friends. I was wanting to go 8 miles and most of my buddies were shooting for 6. I erred on the conservative side since I still wasn’t feeling good and oh boy, was I glad I did.

Those were tough 6 miles and they did nothing for my confidence level. My legs had the same heavy feeling they had when I ran Lost Dutchman the week before. I just felt sluggish and each mile felt like eternity. My average time definitely felt a lot worse than what it actually was: 9:33/mile.

But I got it done and I celebrated my last long run of the training cycle by heading straight to my daughter’s last soccer practice 🙂 Technically, next week is her last day but because of mommy’s marathon, we’re missing the official last day.

Goooooo team! (My daughter’s in the pink–total mommy fail for not having her in uniform lol!)

On Sunday I had big plans to go to a book signing. I’m an English teacher and I am always looking to see what authors are visiting the valley. Well a couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail notification from one of my favorite bookstores that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was doing a signing of one of his young adult books! Basketball? Books? YES!!!

I got to the bookstore early despite having been assigned a group letter (I was C and yeah, it went all the way to Z!). My buddy and got in line and then one of the bookstore people asked if I’d hold the Group Letter for my group: my first official pacer job! 😀

I'm having fun pacing, not sure about the guy behind me though lol!

I take being a pacer seriously 😀

Two hours of standing later (yeah, that def wasn’t conducive to my tapering), I finally got to meet the big guy!

Yay!

It was so awesome. If you’ve been a reader of mine for a while, then you know that I’m a pretty huge basketball buff. Getting to meet Kareem is definitely a top moment for sure!

All in all, a decent week. I’m finally feeling better and I plan on just resting as much as I can as the big day approaches. I’m trying to have the same relaxed mentality I had for Fiesta and RnRAZ when I went in without much stress and ended with great results. I think it’s harder this time because this is THEE race I’ve been training for you know?

Total Miles: 15 miles

Water Intake: B+ (I did good this week! Only missed 2 days and not by a lot!)

–How was your running week?

–What athlete would you like to get an autograph from?

Week 14 Phoenix Marathon Training Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon, Running and tagged with Marathon Training, Phoenix Marathon, Running, Sick, Taper, Valentine's Day February 16, 2015

This is the first time that I’ve every truly experienced the taper crazies. Before, I wasn’t so stressed as much as excited. This time, I’m a nervous wreck.

Yep, pretty much.

I mentioned last week how I’d come down with a serious head cold, well it hasn’t gone away. In fact, last week it turned into a full blown I feel like death sickness. My head hurt, I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t talk–think smoker, raspy voice. It was bad.

But I ran. Oh, by golly, I ran.

On Sunday and Monday, I took a rest day after my twenty miler the previous Saturday. Remember how I lamented about my knee? Yeah, it’s sore 😦 Ugh!!!

Tuesday I forced myself to get to my run club’s Tuesday run. They all heard my voice and asked what the hell I was doing there. I managed to get in a good 5 miles (9:05/mile), despite sounding and feeling miserable.

Wednesday I was officially on the struggle bus. I had 9 Yasso’s on the schedule and I really didn’t want to miss this day of training. So I went and it was not pretty. Last week, I was so proud of my 800s and how consistent they were; this week, not so much. They were all over the place.

At least the circles are pretty 🙂

Thursday and Friday I rested. I tried to rest as much as I could. I actually took the day off from work on Thursday to help out my situation. I was just so exhausted.

In other news, I’m looking into transferring schools closer to home. My current commute is around 40 minutes both ways and even though I absolutely love, love, LOVE, my current school, I really want to be close to my kids and husband. On Thursday I found an opening at a school I’m interested in close to where I live. I scrambled all afternoon getting everything I needed to fulfill the application. As a result, it wasn’t as a relaxing day off as I’d planned lol! But still very exciting as I’m keeping my fingers crossed everything works out.

Friday, my husband and I had our Valentine’s Day dinner. We opted to do it then instead of Saturday night because I had a race on Sunday and didn’t want to run with a full stomach from dinner ha!

Cheesecake Factory 😀

A few of my friends and I had planned to run the first 8 miles of the Phoenix Marathon course the next morning, Saturday. We wanted to get our legs ready for that initial downhill. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. and tried my best to get a good night’s sleep.

But it didn’t happen.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm and my throat on fire. There was no way I’d be able to run that morning and not make my situation worse. I texted my girlfriends that I wasn’t going to be able to make it. And then I cried.

Yes, I cried.

I got so emotional. I’ve been working so hard this training and I feel like it’s slipping away. Between being sick and now this knee hurting, I’m afraid that any chance of doing well is going out the window. I know I’m being dramatic, but it’s tough having things so out of your control. Ugh.

Later on Saturday, my husband suggested we go for a run ourselves. He knew that I really wanted to get the mileage in. So we did 6 miles around the neighborhood and I came home to a Valentine’s card and a new pair of shoes!

❤

Those six miles were tough and I was not feeling good about the race the next day. If you follow me on Insta or Facebook, then you know that those tough 6 miles were a foreshadowing of a not-so-good Sunday 10k race. I’ll be doing a full re-cap tomorrow but yeah, it wasn’t my best piece of work. By any means.

Welp, there you have it! A big struggle week but I made it through.

Total miles: 21.7 miles
Water Intake: B+ (at least something went well this week lol!)

–Do you run when you’re sick? How about if you’re reeeeally close to marathon time?

–How was your Valentine’s Day?