Monday morning my throat hurt more....and by Tuesday I told my boss that I had to go buy some Advil Cold & Sinus or I would be going home for the day. There isn't a pharmacy that close to my work, but in less that an hour I had "the goods." Really acquiring this medicine is pretty intense. They keep it behind the counter. You must have a valid driver's license. And your information gets recorded. I guess this is an attempt to bust at home crystal meth factories taking place in suburbia. Or a fun chance for us sick adults to feel like we are characters on Desperate Housewives, since we've out grown the free lollipop.
I like the way the package shows a ray of sun beaming upon "Advil." I've tried more than one cold medicine and Advil Cold & Sinus by far seems to have the best results for me. Two different versions of Tylenol cold medicine just turned my nose into a faucet :-/Anyway, if you all will allow me to get nostalgic for a second... I got VERY sick around this time last year as I was training for my first half marathon. I typically don't get a lot of colds. I'm more of a spring allergies kind of girl (if anything.) The reason I got sick last year was a combination of stress from lack of job security AND lack of sleep due to my workload. Maybe also flying in a small plane to Oklahoma. Basically I got the common cold and couldn't shake it because I didn't have time to rest. I took some time off of running, but for the most part just figured out a way to suck it up. *Read: Advil Cold & Sinus.* I SHOULD have gone to the doctor. My cough did NOT sound good. However, I knew the Dr. would tell me to rest and there was no way in HELL I was going to miss my first half marathon. So run it with a cough, I did. One of my fondest memories of that race was actually around mile 8 when I heard another guy struggling with some phlegm in the back of his throat. I thought "Yes! I'm not the only stubborn idiot out here. What's up my brother?!" No really. Mid-run I thought those words: "What's up my brother?" And no. That's not a phrase I use regularly.
So, running with a cold is something I'm pretty familiar with. After taking Monday and Tuesday of this week off, I decided to just suck it up and run tonight. I had kind of a bad day, and needed this mentally more than anything. I ran 8.5 miles in 1:28:17 with no walk breaks/etc. (Basically the whole run was at a 10:30 pace). I had thought about pushing myself to do 10 miles but figured I should wait until I was feeling a little better. After going to the restroom at the gym. I decided to just go for another half mile which I completed in 4:58. So I actually ran 9 miles with a COLD. I'll count 8.5 miles as my true long run distance, and the 9 miles toward my mileage for the week.
I'm sort of curious to see if I feel better or worse cold-wise tomorrow.
Oh and one other thing. Adam (The Boring Runner) is doing his first ever blog giveaway. You should check it out! Even if you don't want to win a nice water bottle or gu's, his blog is hilarious and he's a really fast runner! I've listed his blog to the right under "Blogs I Read Frequently."
