Back in the Saddle

Thanks guys, for your well-wishes. And Jeneric, you are right; I think I will have a great marathon experience, regardless of my time or whatever life throws at me. I am just too excited for the experience, not to enjoy it! Thanks for reminding me of that.

And, after a week of ill, I am finally feeling better and got back in the saddle and went for a run last night. I managed 25 minutes, and it wasn't as bad as I expected, but I certainly wasn't challenging any land speed records. (Or any underwater or outer-space speed records either, for that matter.) It felt like 6 days of illness had managed to undo 14 weeks of training. However, tomorrow morning I am back with the running group for a long run on my favorite Highline Canal; here's hoping I can still breathe afterward. Then Sunday I am off to Vail for a company retreat for a few days, and will try some at-altitude running to see how that goes. Running amidst the yellow aspens is just too enticing to pass up!

Only 2 weeks to Denver!!!!!!! Gaaahhh, I can't wait!

Happy weekend everybody, and good luck to those of you racing this weekend!

Not Exactly a Marathon Taper

Turns out back, is really more like "back" since I because I haven't been running, I haven't been blogging. Why haven't I been running, when here I sit, less than three small weeks away from the Denver Marathon? Well, let me tell you:

Now, while I generally do welcome any and all prescribed
breaks from house/kid duties, this is not exactly the directive you want to
get from your doctor, three weeks out from your (first, for which you
have been training for months) marathon.

While I do still feel pretty much like roadkill, I am hating not being able to run¹. Quite honestly, I would be inclinced to ignore the good doc's advice and run anyway, if I thought myself capable of actually completing a decent run without going into respiratory distress. And so the very worst part of the last few days (aside from the crabby repurcussions on my poor family, of course) is that I am physically unable to run, despite the beautiful weather and the strong desire to do so. So, sadly, my new goal for the marathon has simply become to finish it come hell or high water. I don't care how long it takes, because at this point I will be glad to be running again by then. It really sucks to spend months doggedly training for something, a singular goal, only to have it slip through your fingers, just out of reach....sigh.

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¹-My last run was last Thursday, a 5-miler. The weather was good and I actually felt ok at the time, except that I felt like I was having a hard time breathing, which was odd. I thought maybe it was just the incredible shrinking sports bra I had worn that day corseting my ribcage. About 4 miles in, I started feeling better and settling into my groove, so I figured I must have just needed a longer warm up for reasons unbeknownst to me (yeah, like perhaps because of the fact that my body was trying to fight of The Consumption). I was feeling good enough that I would have kept going beyond 5 miles, had I had more time. ANYWAY, I proceeded from there to the gym, had a good work out, still felt fine. Woke up Friday with a cough and a little achey, but still sort-of fine. Well, by Friday night, I was wishing I might actually die, rather than continue to feel the way I did then (extreme body aches, bad cough, high fever, exhaustion). The good news is that it isn't H1N1 or even the flu at all...the bad news is it's some other respiratory virus (on top of the sinus infection I was already on antibiotics for) that has lasted muuuuuccchhhh longer and made me feel waaaaaaayyyyy worse than the flu. Suh-weet.