Illness impacts training

One of the benefits I have found since taking up marathon running is that I am rarely ill for more than 24-36 hours. Prior to that, it seemed like the cold or flu would hit and drop me down for days on end.

I have been steadily running 5-6 miles daily for my short runs and working my long runs up in anticipation of The Goofy Challenge in January. My daughter and I are planning to drive down from near Savannah, Georgia to DisneyWorld on January 7^th for a couple of races. Jennifer has been diligently training for her first half marathon event and I will be pacing her and enjoying the challenge of watching her complete the DisneyWorld Half Marathon on Saturday, January 8^th. Then, on January 9^th is the second race, the DisneyWorld Marathon. By completing the 39.3 miles in two days, I will be able to have said I completed The Goofy Challenge. This is going to be my last marathon for a year while I take a break to try and focus on building up my base speed.

Everything was going well with my training until December 16^th. I came home from work and started feeling miserable. The next few days I felt worse until finally, on Sunday I had to go to an InstaCare and get seen by a doctor. I had not been able to run since the last Wednesday and my face hurt, my ear hurt, I was coughing like crazy, had a sore throat and could barely sit up without wanting to pass out. I was diagnosed with ear infection, sinus infection and bronchitis and put on some medication.

Just as an indication of how lousy I felt, I not only missed the Christmas program I had written for church, but was too ill to go out and celebrate my son Kevin's 20^th birthday on December 20^th.

The medication helped some, but not as much as I hoped and it wasn't until last Thursday that I finally hacked my way through a pitiful 3 mile run. Eight days without running during the time I should have been doing my last long runs was not what I had planned. I did manage to get 10 miles in on Christmas Eve Day, but was already starting to wonder if the antibiotics were actually working.

Back in bed on Christmas Day and back to the doctor the next day. Now I am on a stronger antibiotic and hoping this one will actually kick the illnesses out of my system. At this point in time, I can only hope for the best in the races and just plan on having a good time and finishing.