I came into week 11 with one hell of a cold, making sure I stayed on top of my asthma meds, not wanting a repeat of last years marathon weekend debacle. Usually when I have a cold I manage some small amount of mileage, but that was not happening this time around.
I managed to get on the bike once early in the week, but the difficulty level of the ride told me that my body was not ready for running. So throughout the week the most I did was some resistance band exercises, and when Thursday rolled around I attempted a morning run with Kasey.
She dragged me out of bed even earlier than usual, as she needed to get to school early for her last finals of the semester. So by 6:05 I was headed out the door, and I quickly found Kasey outside.
The air was cold and my breathing was rough, and excuse my language, but way more phlegm was a part of this run than usual. We kept the pace as easy as possible, and I managed to get through 5 miles. Kasey ran the first two with me, and at mile three I stopped by my parents house to grab water. I tried to bail on the run at that point, but dad pushed me to finish the five miles that I intended to set out for, so I went back out and made my way back to the apartment.
I considered going out for more miles on Friday, but after not feeling great on Thursday’s run I decided to rest, and save my mileage for the days ahead.
My plan for the weekend was for 13 miles on Sunday, and 18 miles on Monday.
I met up with Mike and Carson on the bethpage trail on Sunday, and we headed north to get the hills out of the way in the first half of the run. Carson only planned to run 5-6 miles with us, so we figured that we could head out a few miles and then double back, before heading south for the second half of the run.
The miles slipped away as the three of us chatted, and I honestly felt better than I had all week getting those miles in. We shared gu, found a decorated tree in the woods, and Carson’s miles were over quickly. We took a quick pit stop in the parking lot to refill my water bottle before getting moving again. Once we were heading south, we needed to get to 3.7 miles before we could turn around and head back to the car, so we would have a total of 13 miles complete.
As our miles came to a close our legs got heavy through the last few miles, and we had to fight our way up the last little hill. But we had such an amazing last long run (for mike) before Disney. Plus, it was his longest run to date! After we finished our run we exchanged Christmas gifts, and I spent the rest of the day wrapping gifts and recovering.
The week started off difficult, but I was feeling so much better by the weekend, and I’m sincerely hoping that this cold has run its course, so I can get in all my remaining miles before the Goofy Challenge!