Last week, I noted my fatigue from ramping up my miles. As it turned out, a few hours after I posted that entry, my throat started hurting, and by the time I went to bed, I felt lousy. Awful sore throat (I'm a baby about those), sinus pain, and ridiculously tired.
Yup, sick. Nothing so dramatic as the flu; just a bad head cold. But still of concern, since head colds often result in asthma flares. And once my asthma flares, the only way to get it under control is with a few days of prednisone. Prednisone is very bad for bone density, even when only taken for a few days at a high dose. And I already have very poor bone density, hovering on the border between osteopenia and osteoporosis.
The rule of thumb is that it's ok to run with a head cold if the symptoms are above the chest, and that's what I've always done. But the last few times I've done that, I've ended up with an asthma flare. So I took a different tack this time - sticking with complete bed rest or easy pool-running (timing it so that I was by myself and not exposing others) until I was no longer symptomatic.
My reasoning was that asthma is an exaggerated response by the body's immune system to stress. Asthma flares result from viral infections because the virus triggers an immune response, and that immune response then continues to rage out of control long after the virus is gone. So....if I could just minimize all stress on my body, perhaps my immune system would settle when the head cold eased, and not take the additional step into asthma.
And, it apparently worked. No asthma flare. So yay. Disappointing in a way, because it means that I really can't run through a head cold, not even easy running. But that's a small sacrifice if it means I avoid an asthma flare.
This was supposed to be a high mileage week - one of my peak weeks of training in a short marathon cycle. But due to the head cold/rest my mileage ended up being pretty low. I can't believe that it will make that much difference to my marathon in the end, as long as I don't have more weeks like this. I'm prioritizing marathon pace specific work over mileage this cycle, and so the marathon pace workout this weekend was much more important to me than the daily mileage average. And that went well despite a lingering bit of fatigue, so yay.
Dailies:
Monday: Sick. Just foam rolling
Tuesday: 9 "miles" pool-running. Foam rolling at night.
Wednesday: 3.5 miles very easy (9:18) to yoga, yoga, and then another 8.5 miles very easy (8:56) plus drills and strides. Foam rolling at night.
Thursday: 11 miles, including a workout of 2 miles, 1 mile in 13:03 (6:32/6:31) and 6:22 with a half-mile recovery. Followed with 1500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.
Friday: Upper body weights/core and 11 "miles" of pool-running. Foam rolling at night.
Saturday: 17 miles, including a "4-3-2-1" workout (sections of 4, 3, 2, and 1 miles at marathon pace with one mile easy between each). Splits were:
4 mile: 27:15 (6:50/6:48/6:50/6:47 - 6:49 pace);
3 mile: 20:22 (6:49/6:48/6:45 - 6:47 pace)
2 mile: 13:33 (6:48/6:45 - 6:47 pace)
1 mile: 6:45
followed with light injury prevention work and then 500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling in evening.
Sunday: 14 "miles" pool-running, followed by yoga and foam rolling.
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