For the last few weeks, I’ve felt like my body was fighting off something. I was more tired at night than usual and I’d fall asleep quicker. It wasn’t affecting me during the day at all, so it was all okay. Well, this week, my body decided to give up the fight and allow the cold to find it’s way in.
Thursday, I started to have a bit of a sore throat, but chalked it up to a dry house. I went to my Quality Workout session with Runners’ Choice as usual and had a good interval session.
When I woke up on Friday, my throat was not good. I decided to stay home from work (I still worked, just from home instead of the office) and hang out in my PJs for the day. I also didn’t want to spread germs at work and I thought my co-workers might appreciate that. I hoped that by taking it easy, maybe it would be the quickest cold ever and be gone in a day (yeah right… I know that never happens).
Saturday morning, the cold was more prominent. I felt out of it and drained. Went to the expo to pick up my race kit and to do a little shopping, but I probably walked right by some great deals since my brain could only focus on one thing at a time. I was looking for arm sleeves and I found some for $12.50 + tax. Yay!
This morning, when I woke up, I had a lovely coughing session where Ryan said he was considering telling me I couldn’t run. But it went away as quickly as it came, and body-wise, I felt good. I promised him that if I felt bad during the race, I would stop and not complete it.
So.. in order to run the race with a cold, I stocked up on supplied, and clothes for that matter. I purposely dressed warmer than I would normally because if I ended up needing to walk a large portion, I wanted to be comfortable. I brought way more gels & shot blocks than I needed to be sure I could avoid another emergency donut situation like 2 weeks ago, a pocket full of Ricola cough drops, and 5 kleenex.
During the race I used:
- 1 gel just before the start
- 1 package of shot blocks throughout the race
- several small cups of Gatorade on the course (I stopped at every aid station starting at 11km and had some)
- 5 cough drops
- 4 fuel belt bottles of water
- and only 1 kleenex that I actually got from a spectator who was holding out a box
I only had 3 small bouts of coughing during the race and taking another cough drop did the trick each time.
I finished the 30 km race Around the Bay in 2 hours, 56 minutes, 2.5 seconds. Not too shabby.
