I caught the flu or a nasty cold two weeks ago. I gave in and adjusted by not running certain days, and slower for all of the prescribed important runs of the week. Even at a reduced pace, the effort was tough.
This week I thought I could return to the recommended paces for the Tuesday tempo and Thursday intervals. Tuesday’s run started in the breeze, but that went away when I ran North on A1-A. I had 6 miles of tempo to do, and in mile #1 the Garmin watch was already squawking that I was above goal pace. That kept up the whole way. I ran to the MacArthur Park entrance and turned back – thinking that even at high effort and the slower pace I could finish the 6 miles of running fast. I believe I pulled over at mile #4 to dry heave and catch my breath. Not finishing this one unblemished. I ran the next two miles and finished up in the breezy parking lot with the 1.5 mi cooldown.
Thursday was to be three repeats of the two-mile “tomahawk” route in Alton. I did the warmup, saw myself at 9:15 pace and wondered how I was going to peel 3 minutes per mile off that pace.
That didn’t happen! I was over 6:20 pace before the first mile. It was windy, but I didn’t have all the energy and lung capacity to do 2 miles that fast. Figuring out that the illness was still affecting me, I knew a hard effort at whatever pace I could do was going to be today’s run. I did the 3 two mile repeats, the final two in the reverse direction because I thought the wind was easier to hide from. Then I went to the track and did the cool down laps.
Even though I was mentally “done” being less that 100% and sick, I was still taken down by the effects of the week before. I am not annoyed at the missed miles, I want to stay within an acceptable range for the paces I know I have to hit in order to race fast on Oct 26th
