Almost recovered

Everything is so relative in life... On one hand we have these many people who are coping with catastrophic events, many called natural although they are so connected to industrial consequences of global warming. They have lost their home to fire or floods, all their belongings, maybe their job too and they are still struggling many weeks later to get back to a normal life if there is such thing given the circumstances and the impact these events will have financially and emotionally for many years.

Me? It just took me two full weeks to recover from a serious cold I contracted again while in Europe., that's all... Was it the fatigue after the 50-mile Nationals three weeks ago, or the international trip including a red eye, or the lack of sleep during the conference in Berlin, or bugs which I'm not used to anymore after living for almost 20 years in California or... just the fact that I'm less resistant with the years?

Running in Berlin was hard because of the soreness in my legs but I was able to run a decent 50K training run while in Paris, before contracting this virus.

With the cold though I couldn't run for 6 straight days, I was completely wiped out. Ironically, after reading some comments on Facebook, I had decided not to get a flu shot 5 days before Tussey 50-mile for the fear of getting side effects on race day. I'm all for vaccines in general against serious threats but I'm still debating the usefulness of that particular one.

I'm still not back to full steam yet but I didn't feel the shortness of breadth in my lungs on my run today, this is progress! And that allowed to finally have a handful of sub 7 min miles, finally, almost breaking 6 min/mile at the end of my 12-mile run this morning.

I think I'll enter a local 5K next week to see if I can hold onto that for 3 miles, then it will be the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10K which will likely be my last race this year. By the way, it's not too late to register for that Turkey Trot if you are in the area for Thanksgiving. Look at the cool t-shirt you'll get!

The part which hasn't recovered yet from my recent trip is a sharp pain in my elbow which I can't explain at all and barely self-diagnose on the web. I hope it's just a tendonitis, not a strained ligament. Meanwhile, I try to minimize the use of my right elbow, I wish I knew what it was to see if I should fully immobilize it or not (sling). Another reminder of how complex our body is, a tricky joint in this case when you think of all the movements an elbow allows, and the forces going though it when you weight something.

Although these small setbacks are irritating and frustrating, there are nothing compared to the struggles I mentioned at the beginning of this post; what a blessing to still be able to run 68 training miles in a week, I should certainly not complain! And I'm thinking of those going through so much trouble these days, courage and hold on out there!