Week Ending 5/4/2014: Sick at the Right Time.

I have a cat on my lap, and he has usurped my computer's normal spot, so I am decidedly not in the best writing position. 

For those of you who are not aware, the cat generally wins arguments of this nature. The cute factor is the trump card. 

All that aside, last week was not the best as far as running goes. I had planned to take a day or two to recover from the Long Run the prior Saturday. In fact, when I ran on Tuesday, short though it was, I felt remarkably good. It was the rain, cold, and wind that kept me from running longer, not the fatigue. 

The next day, though, after closing down a restaurant with a running friend from church back in the day, I woke up with a cold. I still ran on Wednesday, but the next day the cold definitely won. When I took three tries to get out of bed without getting dizzy and stumbling into the wall, I knew there was no running that day. 

The cold is still lingering, but I'm definitely over the worst of it now. On with the summary. 

Monday: Off. 

Tuesday: 3 miles easy. 

Wednesday: 4 miles easy. 

Thursday: Off. (SICK!)

Friday: 5.5 miles. Easy. Still sick, but feeling a little better. 

Saturday: 5.5 miles. Easy. Still not feeling great. 

Sunday: 5 miles. Hiking in Afton State Park. 

Total: 23 miles. 

Looking back now, I could not have gotten sick at a better time. It made me take a decent amount of rest after the 29 miler and before resuming an intense training schedule. It also gave me enough time to recover fully from the cold before racing in another week and a half. 

In the last couple days (Tuesday and Wednesday of this week) I've had a few experiences that make me even more confident in my training. Tuesday, I did my traditional hill fartlek. My legs were still easily tired after being sick for a week, but even so, I ran up Ramsey hill in 1:25, another 5 seconds off my PR for that hill, and meaning I went up a quarter mile, 125 foot hill at 5:40 pace. 

Despite that, I had to cut the workout short. It was just too soon after the cold. 

Then today, feeling a bit better, I decided that, for the first time in a very long time, I would wear my watch on my normal easy 5-mile course just to see where I was at in terms of pace. I knew I would have no trouble taking it easy after Tuesday. Despite tired legs, I hit the first mile in 6:30(!), and ticked off each of the following miles in 7 minutes plus or minus a few seconds. That means that my stumbling, easy pace run is faster much faster than my goal race pace. 

I'm running low on excuses if things don't go well.