May 2018 – Running with Neal

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Its been awhile but the break is now over!

Saturday I the first in the Airzona Sunrise Series. This is a set of 7 5Ks in different locations throughout the Phoenix area. There is another race every other weekend. Last Saturday was at Kiwanis Park in Tempe, AZ.

It was a nice out and back course that curved around a pond and beside one of the canals. Pretty fast course, although, it did manage to go uphill both ways which is an interesting feat in an out and back.

I ran it in 28:13 making it the second fastest 5K since high school. Given that I haven’t ran much in the past month. (This brings my total in the past four weeks to 7 miles.) I’m pretty happy with it.

Everything felt good for the whole race. I was tired afterward, but nothing felt injured. I do need to work on speed but I think that this was a good baseline run. The next race is on June 9th. So, I’ve got two weeks to find some more speed. The main thing that I think that I’ll be fighting is the heat.

It’s starting to get hot here in the valley of the sun. as in today hit triple digits and I don’t think we will be turning back until September. So, That should make things interesting.

Speaking of that ridiculous cold/upper respiratory infection. One of the lingering effects of it was a sore throat. It just wouldn’t stop. I lasted 4 weeks total and added an ear ache in the past week. I only just got rid of it thanks to some high powered medication. Namely another round of stronger antibiotics and a little thing called prednisone.

Prednisone is an interesting thing. It’s a steroid used to reduce inflammation. Namely my sinus passages. Yes it had gotten that bad. But it has some side effects. I’m hungry. Like REALLY hungry. All the time. I ate a big lunch today and was hungry about 5 minutes later. I’m also really thirsty. Like I drank about 250 ounces of water today. The most fun effect though is that I’m wired. Its like drinking about 10 pots of coffee all at once and no crash in the afternoon. I’m getting a lot done at work right now and will probably start attacking the house tomorrow evening. I’m hoping that I can go on a run tomorrow night as well.

Until then…C-ya fb_img_1527546568846

So, its been awhile since I posted anything. That’s partially because I haven’t ran in over two and a half weeks. But I have a fairly good reason. At least I think it is.

Two days before the race I started to get a little bit of a sore throat. Not a big deal I thought. I started pushing vitamin C pretty hard and decided to take it easy. Friday I had a little bit of a sniffle but again didn’t think much of it.

Then came the plane ride to Indiana.

Flying with sinus issues is never fun. But, I’ve survived it before and was confident that I would again. As the nearly 4 hour flight wore on I began feeling worse and worse. I was getting colder and colder. Even my three year old daughter cuddling up next to me wasn’t warming me up any.

OK, I have a fever.

Then came the uncontrollable shivering. Coach V was getting pretty worried about me at this point and started mentioning that a half marathon in less than 12 hours might not be a best idea. I dismissed that thought at first because I’m stubborn and hated the idea of all this training and not taking my shot at a sub 2 hour half. I was sure that the fever was about to break and that with some sleep I’d be fine.

We landed, got our bags, and I made the very tough decision that it would be better not to drive to Illinois get 3 hours of sleep and then run. The better plan was to go to our friends in Noblesville and be able to sleep in the next morning.

When Anna pulled up to take us to her place she thought that I “looked like hell” and that it was a good call to not do the race.

They took my temperature right before we went to bed and I was still at 102. Honestly, I thought it had come down quite a bit from earlier.

So, I slept until 10 I think. Temperature when I woke up was still 102. But it broke shortly after I took a shower and I was feeling somewhat human again.

The decision not to run was the right one. Even though it killed me, metaphorically speaking, to bail on a race. I think that it may have come close to literally killing me if I had run it. Best case I would have been extremely disappointed with the result.

So, I suffered though the next week with a horrible cough, sore throat, and I completely lost my voice. Which is fun when a lot of your job includes being on conference calls. I was coughing so bad especially at night that I was waking myself up and couldn’t get back to sleep. A whole week of only 3-4 hours of fitful sleep is not a great idea. Finally the next Friday my boss came by and told me to go home and see a doctor.

So, I did. and that’s when I was told it was an upper respiratory infection and that it would be a good idea to take a couple of days off work. They also gave my antibiotics and REALLY good cough syrup. Well, I call it really good but it was really effective. It tasted absolutely horrible.

Now in week three of the illness that won’t quit. I still don’t feel great. my throat is still sore and I can’t hardly stand the thought of running. And at the same time I am very eager to get going again.

I’ve taken this time to really think about where my priorities are in running.

I need to get faster.

Like I want to be ALOT faster.

That started with shorter distances and working on my form. I’m going to incorporate hill training into my weekly routine and I am looking to find a track to do some speed work like pyramids and intervals. If anyone reading this has ideas on increasing speed I’m open to try things.

I’m also doing more short (5k) races over the summer. The race schedule for the year currently looks like this:

5/26– ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – KIWANIS PARK

6/9- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – SCOTTSDALE SPORTS COMPLEX

6/23- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – FREESTONE PARK

7/7-Spartan Stadium Series Sprint – University of Phoenix Stadium

7/7- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – ARIZONA FALLS

7/21- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – RIPARIAN

8/4- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – RIO VISTA PARK

8/18- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – FOOTHILLS

12/2 Hot Chocolate 15K

12/9 Buckeye Marathon

12/15 Estrella Trail 10K\5K Challenge

Most of them I will do in person, 3 I’m going to do a virtual run since I can’t be there on race day. I’ll probably add some more to fill in September through November. Although that will be the height of the Marathon training so it might be best to lay off the races for a little bit.

Its a neat series with each race adding to a point total that makes you eligible for a drawing in the fall.

Hopefully my throat calms down soon and I can get back to it this weekend. Until then…C-YA!

Month: May 2018

Sunrise Series and Prednisone

Missed runs and Refocusing