Monday, February 11, 2008

My Body Doth Protest! – Heidi

This Sunday marks the end of a grueling week and it has taken its toll on me. I rarely get sick so I never really know what to do with myself when I am under the weather. This past workweek was challenging with non-stop days and too many late nights. We also had lots of family appointments (dentist, doctor, tennis, basketball, school dance) and social obligations (neighborhood progressive dinner). All of my runs needed to be squeezed in whenever there was a quick break. For example, Monday night found me running on a treadmill in the Shipley Center at the Hospital while waiting for an operating room to open up. Tuesday became my rest day, as there were no free hours in the day. I thought it was more important to vote than to run! Wednesday’s run was one of the best of the week despite running in the wet snow as I really felt the need to clear my head and organize my thoughts. I usually run with my neighbor on Wednesday but she was sick. I love company but needed that alone time this week to just unwind and turn my brain off for 45 minutes.

Yesterday’s run was the long one and the only one that was pre-planned and “protected” in the schedule. I left my husband and son sound asleep and drove into downtown Wellesley to meet three other women from the Suburban Striders. They had all had wild weeks as well. Teresa was sipping a coke as she had just returned from a business trip to Spain and hadn’t adjusted to East Coast time. Carol had been up until midnight packing for her family’s flight to Morocco (where her husband is from) and was taking off at 2:00 pm. Stephanie was trying to find/organize her family’s ski equipment for an upcoming trip. We were all happy to see one another, catch up and be on the road where the craziness of the week would take a back seat for the next two hours.

While Teresa and Stephanie have both run Boston, neither are running this April but were still game to meet early Saturday morning for a run instead of staying under the covers at home. We started in downtown Wellesley and our path took us through Needham, Dover and Natick before getting back to our start. The total for the morning was 13.8 miles. I felt ok during the run but certainly didn’t have the energy that I had experienced last week. I kept swigging my lemonade Gatorade to quiet a dry, nagging cough. I felt really happy to see the traffic light in Wellesley that signaled the end of our workout. When I got home, there wasn’t much time to rest as we were hosting eight neighbors for soup and salad and I was completely unprepared. My husband and I finished everything up right before our guests arrived and had a great evening enjoying this neighborhood tradition. We did decide to skip the dessert course because we were having a tough time staying awake!

This morning, I got up to clean up the mess we’d left from the night before but realized I was feeling flu-ish. I made it through breakfast, but then called my neighbor to cancel our planned morning run, as it was all I could do at that point to keep my head off the placemat. As much as all of the marathon training programs tell you to listen to your body and take time off when you are sick, it definitely is frustrating to be slowed down! Today has certainly not been a very productive day but I’m hoping that this day of rest will get me back into the swing of things.

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