Various Ailments

As you might know, I have four small children. The fact that they bring home a constant stream of germs from school/preschool comes with the territory. I had plenty of opportunity to test my immune system over the winter, but the usual outcome was that between 2 and 5 other family members became sick while I got away with a little bit of sore throat that went away after a day or two.

Therefore I was not particularly bothered by another sore throat on Sunday. Niamh and Lola had been coughing persistently for at least 10 days but no further symptoms. My throat felt worse than usual on Monday, but it was not until I started spitting blood on Tuesday morning that I took note. It may not have been much because a small amount of blood in a lot of mucus does look like a lot of blood, but it did freak me out. Trying hard not to panic, I decided that I still did not have any symptoms below the neck (my usual test) and went running.

The run went well, the HR was perfectly normal and this morning my throat was still sore but thankfully no further sign of blood. With less than 3 weeks to go to the marathon I was rather worried, but I think once more I managed to get away with it.

It was not the only ailment that has befallen me during this training cycle, but I kept most of them to myself. You know about the blown up knee at the start of December, but only the coach knew about my back pain a couple of months ago. I’ve had that before and I think it is not a running injury, but it can be very painful and it can affect my running as well as everyday life.

I also had a very sore left hip for a few weeks, it was either the gluteus medius or the gluteus minimus that was affected. It made the first half mile of each run rather awkward, but that too disappeared eventually, all by itself. The fact that it cleared up straight after I replaced my oldest pair of runners with a new one may or may not have been the solution.

Still, as the coach let me know in no uncertain terms, if in doubt always rest so today’s speed session was cancelled, to be replaced by yet another easy run. I did one thing though, I ran in extra layers with a jacket on top that had me steaming in my own sweat, to try and get some heat acclimatisation going. The temperature in Vienna at the moment is about 20C, and while that’s not very hot by any means it is about 15 degrees warmer than what I'm used to and I’d rather get prepared, just in case. It meant a very high heart rate today (I guess I should have run slower), my shirt was utterly soaked with sweat and I was over 2 pounds lighter than yesterday, but I felt fine. I would not have fancied running 26 miles like that, though.

With the throat returning back to normal and me calming down, we can get back to normal. Since I’m now in the taper phase there are no major workouts planned anyway.

28 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:48, 7:44 pace, HR 139

29 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:27, 7:41 pace, HR 141

30 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:37, 7:42 pace, HR 155
   Wrapped up in layers for heat acclimatisation