Flu Fighters

We got a letter from the kids' primary school, warning parents to keep their children at home if they're feeling unwell because of a massive outbreak of influenza b. At the end of last week they had half of the children missing from school, including ours, as well as a couple of teachers and they have cancelled the Christmas performances, much to Cian's dismay. Anyway, I'm sure the bug I have been dealing with over the last week is the same pathogen because the symptoms are identical as well as a few oddities like feeling perfectly recovered one day (me on Saturday) and sick again the next. I thought I was suffering from man-flu, turns out it's the real flu after all. Thankfully it's a mild one, though that did not stop Niamh from ordering me to stop running and stay at home. Luckily she tends to be asleep at 6 am so I'm literally out of the house already by the time she notices me missing, and so far I have been able to deal with the subsequent inequitable scolding.

The reason I'm so intent on keeping running is that this is the most consistent spell of training I have been able to put together since April/June 2014! Something clicks in my body when I manage to put together several weeks of reasonably high mileage, about 80 in my case, in a row. I can feel the effects happening and I am loath to stop that. I've had a ton of minor complaints, plus on major one, in the last year, and now a bit of flu that I feel I can manage easily enough isn't enough to make me bring all those lovely adaptations to a sudden halt.

The one thing I'm missing is sleep. The flu may well have something to do with it but it's mostly the wind that keeps howling outside the window that keeps me awake. This is going to catch up with me sooner rather than later if it doesn't improve soon but I'm not sure what I can do about the weather. I have run through some pretty awful conditions in the last couple of weeks and the next storm front is only a couple of days away, oh joy.

Anyway, I did 10 miles on Monday, 12 on Tuesday and 15 this morning. I've also started to run a little bit faster, obviously hoping that the accumulated effort is still below my recovery threshold, though the way I'm feeling at the moment I'd say that is indeed the case. I do monitor my HR to keep a lid on things but a side-effect of the flu is that the HR is elevated by a few beats.

One other side effect of that flu (at least I presume it's caused by that) is a lower appetite, which had me lose a few pounds from an already rather low level over the last week or two. I presently weigh in at 141 lbs / 10 st 1 / 64 kg, which is the lowest weight I've had in 8 years. With a height of 5'10 / 178 cm the BMI is 20.3, which is great. Oh, and my waist is under 29 inches, though I only mention that to make Niamh jealous. :-)

I wouldn't mind if those extra pounds kept off until the spring races come round but we'll have to wait and see, especially with Christmas around the corner. I sure do not intend to starve myself in order to keep the weight off as I regard that as counterproductive to quality training.

30 Nov

10 miles, 1:20:25, 8:02 pace, HR 142

1 Dec

12 miles, 1:32:16, 7:41 pace, HR 150

2 Dec

15 miles, 1:55:04, 7:40 pace, HR 150