In Sickness and in Health

Saturday I rode Death Machine for 3:18 and then did a little running afterward.  It was cool out, 50's is all.  I have the gear to ride in weather like that, and I was completely comfortable.  When I was done, though, I seemed to have developed a dry cough and the beginnings of a sore throat.  I attributed it to the cold weather riding.  A few hours later, I also noticed my entire patootie was sore, dumbass, you don't just ride a new MTB that long and not expect it!  I may need to get a different saddle for him.  But I digress.

I went to dinner with some friends, and we had a rollicking good time.  2 I hadn't seen in quite awhile (yet more people I inadvertently alienated last year while depressed), and then Lori.  I thought maybe she would get sick of me because this was 3 weekends in a row we'd spent time together!  We had a great dinner of sushi.  I had beer, the rest had wine.

When I got home, my throat felt worse.  I'd already started on the Zicam drops, but that night, I was barely able to sleep because my throat was so sore.  I'd planned to ride with Blane on Sunday, but that was clearly out.  Sunday I spent the day being completely miserable, barely able to do anything much except lay around and watch TV.  When you are in heavy training and the bottom drops out and you can't do it, you don't know what to do with yourself!  Kind of like a taper.

I began pumping in my usual medicines--Alka Seltzer Plus, cough syrup (I had Vicks 44 laying around), and cough drops as needed to help with the throat.  My throat improved on Sunday and I no longer wanted to off myself.  That was the worst sore throat I have ever had in my life!  I began asking around to see if this was the "going thing," and indeed it is.  But that doesn't help me any.  I'd already planned to take Monday off from work, and now I would be sick.  At least on Sunday I managed to make the muffuletta that I'd bought ingredients for a few days earlier:

Work has been very busy as many of us are working on HIX customers, and it's a series of daily calls for status checks, ensuring the customer's issues are being worked well, tons of email, making sure everyone is happy (such as it is), and it's generally high pressure because this stuff is very visible.  While I had a colleague covering for me yesterday, I still wanted to attend the 2 primary calls just to stay up with my customer.  That's how it goes when you do the job that I do.  Sometimes.  Usually I can just be gone and not think about things.

Well, I joined the first call and tried not to talk, as my voice was pretty much kaput--porn star quality, though!  Over the weekend, things had blown up somewhat, and I really can't go into detail here, but I wanted to be sure I made a statement as to the disposition of that particular issue.  So I did, only I didn't realize a certain person was on the call.  Nonetheless, I didn't say anything that hadn't already been sent in a public email, but the dude I didn't know was on the call said, "We are already spending fucking tons of money."  Yay!  My first F-bomb on a customer call!  Luckily, I am the queen of the MUTE button on my phone (I use my land line for these toll-free conference calls because the quality is unsurpassed and I know nobody can call me while on there), and it was all I could do not to laugh hysterically.  I got support from my colleagues on the call, and we carried on.

After that call, I had a doctor's appointment, because I just wanted to be checked out in case I had something bacterial, and also I'd decided I wanted an inhaler just to keep my lungs in tip-top shape.  I've done this before, and the reason is that when I was a child, I had repeated episodes of bronchitis, and it has scarred my lungs (it shows up on chest X-ray), so I'm a little vulnerable when things move into my lungs.  The doctor checked me out and pronounced me OK as far as lungs, throat, ears and nose, told me it's viral, and then she obliged me by writing the script for the inhaler.

After that, I made a trip to Toys 'R Us to look for various things, and found 2 new friends for Iron Man:

They were having a special buy one Iron Man 3 thing get the second 40% off, so of course I got them both!  They make quite the crew, don't they?  Then I stopped at the UPS Store to mail some things to my friend, William, who had recently sent me some T-shirts from his coaching company, a Rudy Project winter hat (I LOVE Rudy Project), and an articulated HULK!

Finally, I picked up my inhaler at the drug store and headed home.  I wasn't feeling too too bad, except I was all jacked up from the combination of drugs I'd taken.  My body is very sensitive to antihistamines and ephedrine and norepinephrine, and I was a bit jittery, my heart was racing a bit (at the doctor my BP was way up and she was alarmed but I explained why), and I had a whopping headache.  I decided that I was well enough to terminate everything but the inhaler.

I attended one more call from work, and then I needed to lay down, which I did, and probably napped a little bit--not really sure.  I really needed to mow my lawn, so around 5:45 I finally went outside and did that, and the gasoline fumes made me choke, but I got it done.

The headache was pretty bad, but I knew it wasn't sinus based on its location.  So I finally got an ice pack and iced my head!  That helped a lot.  I got a good night's sleep last night, and while I still have a bit of a cough, my nose is no longer running like a faucet, and as you can see, I am up early again.  I decided to take today as a sick day, although I will probably participate in some calls at work.  I also am going to try doing a light workout, as I am beginning to feel creaky!  I need to move around, even if it's just to walk, but I think I can at least jump on a bike on the trainer and spin for a little bit.  So I definitely am on the mend, I am through the worst of this, and hope to be good as new by Thursday so I can get in a long run and then of course, the weekend's long rides.

I had several well-meaning friends try and tell me to take this or that for my illness, and while I appreciate their input (because some of the things I forget like get my usual vitamins), I know my body really well and that I can't really put too many foreign substances in there because I do have pronounced systemic reactions to them.  Typically when I contract something viral, I can do full-strength medicine for one day, and then I have to taper off because the reaction I have to the drugs is worse than the disease.  It has always been this way for me, and my Dad was the same way.  I had to take something initially just for symptom relief.  And this time was no different.  Sunday--all the drugs.  Monday morning--all the drugs, but then I cut them out mid-day.  Today, just inhaler as needed.

The only GOOD thing about being sick is that when you feel well again, it feels AWESOME!  So I am looking forward to that, and I think it's maybe a day or two away.  In years past, I might have tried to push it in terms of working out, but I know that would be suicidal at this point, so I am just rolling with it.  Next week is a planned rest week anyway, so I guess I'm doing an early taper!

Accountability

Iron Man and Tiny Spock who held me accountable during the first part of today's long run

I am blessed to know many outstanding athletes--mostly age groupers, but I count among my acquaintances a few pros as well.  The primary attribute they all share is accountability--to themselves, to their coaches/mentors (if they have one), and to their own athletes.

I have mentored many people, and right now consider myself a mentor to 3 athletes, and I am formally coaching another.  Of my mentees, one is doing another Ironman imminently, one is beginning training for his 2nd Ironman, and another is recovering from an injury but is hoping to get in a first Ironman or close to the distance next year.  All three of them know not to second guess my advice, and if I ask any of them about how their training is progressing, I get the God honest truth.  What paces/power are they doing things at, what is their nutrition plan and are they doing it, are they recovering, are they hitting the targets or not.

Right now, I am my own coach, so I am only accountable to ME, but it really helps me when I have others who feel accountable to me, because it makes me feel accountable to THEM.  Why? Because I feel like I need to show them that I take my own medicine, and that the relationships go both ways.

The guy I'm coaching is a pure joy for me to work with.  Without me asking, he tells me how the workouts FEEL and if he's hitting targets and asks me if he can move workouts around.  He's a smart guy who raced bikes Cat 1 in college, so it's a little comical that I am showing him how to bike train now.  But it's triathlon training, not bike racing. He's going to turn into a beast to be reckoned with at triathlon, and I may even need to cut him loose next year and insist he get a better coach!  It is truly wonderful for me to work with such a talented person, as it inspires me to work hard and reinforces my knowledge of the training and racing process.  Thanks, Brad!

The same is true of the 3 guys I am mentoring.  Many of my training/racing platitudes (many of which have come from my own past coaches) come to mind just at the right times, and I find them spouting them back at me which is a real compliment, and I think I'm done reminding them where they came from!  Thanks, Carl, Maz and Sol!

I have trouble relating to people who aren't accountable to themselves about their training.  That behavior makes for poor racing, injury and sets a bad example for other athletes.  I am typically quite brash with such people whether or not they accept my opinion.

But luckily, such people are the minority in my circle of friends, since accountability is intimately connected with integrity, and if you notice, integrity is in my tagline for this blog.

Today, Iron Man and Tiny Spock (I just recently acquired Tiny Spock) held me accountable while I did the first hour of my long run on my treadmill, Hal.  In this case, holding me accountable meant I would run the correct paces for my training zones based on my current VDOT, even if I felt like running faster.  So for that first hour, I covered only 6.35 miles in an hour, where the first 30' were in Zone 1, 20' in Zone 2, and then 10' in Zone 4.

Then I went outdoors to complete the workout, and covered 6 miles in 53:40, or 8:57 pace, and the gist of that time was to be 5' Zone 2, 10' Zone 4, 5' Zone 2, 15' Zone 3 and 15' Zone 2. I went a little further out before I headed back since I wasn't sure how fast I'd run home, which is why I ended up going over 50'.  No worries, my Zone 4 stuff outside was at a fast clip, and I slowed down appropriately after it.

I had a slight miss on my run nutrition today.  Since it appears I am running faster than I did 4 years ago and my thyroid is working properly again, that means I need more calories while I run.  I wasn't too far off today, but I felt hungry when I was about 10.5 miles in.  I had plenty of fluids, though.  So noted in my training log, and I will do better on next week's long run.

Accountability...Integrity...Honesty...if you don't have those things, keep away from me!