When I last wrote, I cheerfully detailed the disgusting phlegm issue that took up residence in my respiratory tract, along with a deep cough, endless floes of snot and an occasional low-grade fever (did I mention the fever?) I had run 13 miserable miles and I muddled through the next week, not running on the weekdays and imagining that this was a way of saving up my energy to attempt a quality long run.
That strategy actually worked quite well. On Sunday September 20 I got up before dawn and drove to Richmond to run 20 miles. The plan was to start earlier than Heidi and Beth and finish at the same time to gorge ourselves on baked goods. I didn't know what to expect for this run and I was exceedingly pleased at how well it went. I walked a little, kept a reasonable pace, saw a beaver swimming in the Winooski River, listened to some great podcasts (including one that confirmed for me that the kicker for the San Diego Chargers is a huge public radio fan), and finished in a time that was as good as I could expect, regardless of whether I've sick an undertrained. Though I was exhausted in the last 3 miles.
After that Sunday 20 miler, I was slammed at work for a few days and woke up Wednesday with a resurgent sore throat, cough, stuffy nose, headache. I made it through that day on will power alone, and then spent the next several days in bed feeling sorry myself. I subsisted on popsicles and Robitussin for several days, and finally went to the doctor. He told me that three weeks of coughing is a danger zone but that, I quote, "it's not walking pneumonia yet." Yet! Excellent! I took my three prescriptions to the pharmacy, where I also bought still more popsicles and Kleenex with lotion. I love Kleenex with lotion.
When I attempted going back to work my coworkers gasped and ran for cover at the disgusting sounds of my mucusy cough, prompting them to send me home. The cough stuck around, the stuffy nose continued to be full of yellow muck, I carried on feeling sorry for myself and finally went back to the doctor. He sent me to the hospital for a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia, but didn't have much to offer for a virus that won't let go.
At this point I was on Week 2 of having not run at all, and Week 4 of having run very little and race day was approaching. One might argue that "rest" before a race is good thing, but not the kind of rest brought on by chronic wasting disease.
And now three weeks have passed, and the race is a few days away. I did run on Monday this week, a nice and easy 5 miles that felt pretty good. A little coughing, more than a little snot (that's what sleeves are for) but the new shoes felt great and I was able to change pace pretty easily throughout the run.
So to recap: my training has stunk, from beginning to end. Some of it was lack of effort, some of it was injury, some of it was an overextended schedule, and in the end I got slammed by sickness. The afternoon that I went to get a chest x-ray was the first time I really questioned whether I would try to run the race. But with a negative x-ray on my side, and the memory of that pretty successful 20 mile run, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.
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