February

[stillwaddler]

Running hasn’t been the easiest in the last couple of weeks. For the 12 mile run two weekends ago I stupidly chose a very up hill course. It rises constantly from 2 miles out until mile 5.5. the weather was also not the best being both very cold and foggy. I should have known better but wanted to bank the miles. It was a real struggle to get up the hill, I had to resort to walking several times. Running back down was easier, but I was coughing rather a lot when I reached home and felt rather wheesy too. The following weekend’s outing almost didn’t happen as I was feeling so down and hopelessly negative. Hal Higdon had a 17 mile trek planned for me. I eventually got myself out of the door - ElG's previous marathon campaigns being a great source of motive and inspiration. Had to call back home after 7.5 miles to use the loo – I forced myself back out of the door and finished the rest of the mileage. However, I was extremely wheesy when I finished and had to borrow my youngest’s inhaler which did seem to make a difference. I then started with a hard, dry cough that I thought world turn me inside out. I put up with it until Wednesday thinking it was just a bug or something but then visited the doc’s. She has diagnosed me with asthma. This is apparently a legacy of the swine flu from last November and was sparked off by running in the cold weather. An inhaler was prescribed. At least she didn’t tell me to stop running. Turns out the doc is training to do the Great Manchester 10 K! I didn’t do Hal's scheduled runs during the week but did do a 4 and a 3 on the tready in the warmth of the gym with no problems whatsoever.
Saturday arrived together with a filthy headache., thus the scheduled 18 miler was put off until Sunday. On Sunday morning I had a bad case of the "cant be bothereds”. Eventually ventured fourth with plans to do 13 instead of the scheduled 18 - which I can swop with next week - in order to get back in time to watch the Carling Cup. I wore a buff type scarf to breath through hoping that this would warm the air before it hit my lungs. It worked to a certain degree but I was still breathing really badly by the time I got back. The coughing has started again and I really don’t know what to do. My instinct tells me that I am not doing myself any good by continuing to run in the cold weather over these longer distances, but I can’t face running further than 12 miles on a tready. Is the Brighton campaign over? HELP