I know potential sickness comes with training in the winter, but right now I'm in a rough pattern of feeling kind of better, so going for a run and then relapsing much worse. So I think I'm going to be chilling for a while until this is really gone. It's so frustrating. 

Anyway, here's a bit of a look at how things went before things got rough.

Week Seven

Because of some scheduling stuff, week seven started with three days of running in a row + one double day where I squeezed in a lifting session too. It was maybe too much, and in hindsight, I probably should have skipped my easier run from this week to let myself have some more recovery time. 

Instead I did a tempo run, a recovery run and a sprint workout all in a row.

I took a full rest day on Thursday and then woke up early to squeeze in my 90-minute long run on Friday. My husband had to work over the weekend again, so I couldn't make it happen over the weekend. 

Friday's long run was where things got really tough. I was tired and not really feeling it from the moment I woke up. But I got dressed and forced myself out the door because this was an important workout. 30 minutes in and I was ready to stop. My legs felt like bricks, I couldn't keep my heart rate in the low zone even though I was barely going more than 12:30 minute miles. 

I pushed through because I'm incredibly stubborn. I walked a lot, and my heart rate was higher than it should have been, but I clocked 90 minutes on my feet, which felt important. 

But I think pushing it was what started me on a not so great sickness path. 

In hindsight there were probably multiple factors impacting this run. I didn't eat enough the day before, and maybe same thing the morning of. Cumulative fatigue of training. But also probably because I had some underlying sickness brewing. And that set me up for a rough week 8.

Week eight was scheduled to be a cutback week, and I was really looking forward to a lower work load and shorter runs -- especially after Friday's miserable long run.

Going into the week, I'd already decided I was going to skip one of the runs to build in some extra recovery and to help battle the fatigue.

My FitBit stats were in the toilet at the start of the week. My resting heart rate was spiking, my activity readiness number was maybe the lowest I've ever seen it. I took the entirety of President's Day weekend off from running. Other than chasing my kid around, I tried to get myself as much down time as possible to recover. 

I felt a little better Tuesday, still some fatigued, but I felt like I was rebounding so I did a decent weights workout. 

Wednesday, I tackled a tempo run, but I had heart rate issues during the warm up. Barely holding a 13 minute mile, my heart rate was somehow in zone 4. 

By Wednesday afternoon, I was incredibly congested. I barely slept because I couldn't breathe. 

Thursday was much of the same. Friday was a bit better, but still the fatigue. 

I rested a bunch over the weekend, and by Sunday evening was feeling OK-ish. But then I woke up this morning with more congestion and a scratchy throat. 

I'm really frustrated because I only have a handful of weeks to go before the race, and it's killing me to miss all this training. I'm going to force myself to take a few more days off to see if I can knock out this cold, but I am not happy about it!