Quit Playing Games With My Heart

So, the plan I'm supposed to be following this week? You can go ahead and throw that out the window. From the very outset, I thought that it seemed slightly running intensive for the week before the race, but I figured I'd knock off a mile or two here or there and be all ready and raring to go. Until I woke up with a scratchy throat three days in a row. Which got me thinking that I'm probably fighting off a bit of a cold.

In that spirit, I decided to sleep in yesterday morning instead of getting up to go running. I got home from work yesterday (after bulking up on lots of Vitamin C) and changed clothes to go to the gym and pretty much passed out on the couch. In my workout clothes. That seemed like a good sign that I should stay home and forgo the workout.

This morning I managed to drag myself out of bed. I figured if the plan said that I was supposed to run 6 today, I'd be happy if I could do 4. So, I headed off to the gym (rain in the forecast and it was misty and gross this morning) to do some running. I haven't been to the gym in a while and I sort-of forgot how much I hate the treadmills. Turns out I still hate them. But I think today might have been worse than usual.

I ran 1.20 miles before having to get off for a Kleenex emergency. The running up to that point wasn't pretty. All my sickness is pretty much from the neck up and I know that "they" say that you can still work out, but you just have to take it easy. They're not kidding. Running at 5.5 literally felt like I was sprinting.

My heart really felt out of control during this run. I normally don't have any issues being in the high 170s/low 180s while running, but today it was like my heart just decided to drop that number and every time I got up to 171, I'd have to jump to the side of the treadmill for a couple of seconds and wait for it to go back down. Needless to say, this did not make for the most efficient running.

After running 2 miles total, I thought I might have to quit. My chest was hurting a bit under my heart (and, okay, I totally thought that maybe I was having a heart attack, but I recognized it was just my hypochondria at work) and I thought that was going to be it for me. I also didn't want to do too much and make everything worse for myself. I decided to just do some walking and see how things went. After walking for several minutes I started to feel better and talked myself into running one more mile. Somehow, going in with a plan of 4 miles and leaving with 3 seemed a lot better than leaving with only 2 under my belt.

So, I ran one last mile. It was not pretty or easy. And I still had a weird pain in my ribs near my heart. And I kept getting a side-stitch, which I almost never ever get. But I came out on the other side still alive. I felt like I was one of those people that everyone else in the gym looks at and thinks, "wow, she's going really slowly and still isn't running very well ... she must be really out of shape."

My plan for the rest of the week is to just do as much as I can without pushing myself too hard. At this point I know that I can run the distance of the race and I really do not have any sort of time goals (although I will say that if it's over three hours I think I'll be disappointed) and I might as well rest up and feel better for next weekend. Oh, and did I mention that the weather forecast is currently calling for rain next Sunday? This seems rather typical of my luck with weather, so I'm not that surprised. I'm just going to hope that it's not too cold to go along with the rain. I probably better buy another emergency poncho for Drew!

(As a complete aside, now that I've given this title to the post, I absolutely cannot get the song out of my head).

Running
Time: 32:25
Distance: 3.00 miles
Pace: 10:51/mile
Calories: 366
Maximum HR: 181
Average HR: 164