Sidelined

As mentioned yesterday, I am a little under the weather. First there was this head cold that wouldn’t go anywhere and as soon as I started to relax a little on our winter vacation – BOOM – I got really sick. Right in time for our trip to Bavaria which I didn’t want to cancel and that was also tons of fun, but I just didn’t get the rest in, I would have done if I had been home.

So my last real workout has been on the last Saturday in 2009 and since then I didn’t do anything than hiking and walking and actually since I am back from Germany…. I didn’t do ANYTHING AT ALL. This might be the longest stretch of workout free time in a year.

Of course the timing is BAD. There is no good time for getting sick and there is much worse out in this world than having a cold. Nevertheless, in the absence of having real problems, I am frustrated to say the least. I signed up for my first half marathon and the big day is less than six weeks away. On top of it, I haven’t managed to run the 13.1 miles in one of my long runs yet.

Considering all these current events, I decided to scramble my planning around a little. The planned 10K in Asheville in two weeks is OFF. I prefer to have this weekend available for a quality long run instead of doing a race. That means that I didn’t do a race in December and won’t do one in January. Looks like this cold has also induced the longest stretch of non-racing months, since I started racing in November 2008. I try not to go to crazy over that, but I show tons of nerves at the starting line and doing races on a regular basis helps my brains to remember that there really is nothing to be nervous about. Terry always says: “Why should I be nervous, it’s just running!” – I wish I could adopt that attitude.

As of right now, I plan to get back to my workouts tomorrow morning with a swim class at 6AM… Today, I stopped by the nurse in our facility and got the green light for working out. I was planning on starting back up, but it gives me some peace of mind that she agrees with my assessment.

On brighter news (brighter than the green light): Team D.N.R. will be back in action end of April at the Palmetto 200 Relay from somewhere close to Columbia, SC to Folly Beach, SC. Originally we talked about doing the American Odyssey Relay from Gettysburg, PA to Washington D.C., but then we heard about this new relay in our backyard and decided to it instead. So far it looks like the original cast will get together for a new installment of running insanity and a sleepless night and tons of stories to tell. STAY TUNED! ;-)