A Cough, A 10K, and more Coughing

Those of you who know me outside of the blogging world know that I've had this terrible cough for what seems like about 10 years... Okay, it's really only been a little over 2 weeks. The little germ factories I call my beloved children decided to pick up a cold and share it with their mommy.

I probably shouldn't have done it, but I ran the Crofton Kiwanis 10K on June 8th. Aside from the fact that I couldn't breathe properly and had a coughing fit every 5 minutes after I hit 4 miles, this was a great race. There were only about 250 people. The scenery was nice, through a golf course neighborhood. There were a few hills, but nothing I can't handle. The post-race perks were great. They had Chick Fil A, Bruster's ice cream and sherbet, and Smoothie King smoothies, in addition to the normal bagels and bananas they usually have after races. The shirt was nice as was the goodie bag, which I won't really be able to use since it's for a competitor's gym.

When I got home, I crashed. I have been coughing like crazy since then. I can't go an hour without having a fit. Today is the first day I have felt a little better. Being sick has completely thrown off my training. I have only run once since the race. I did a 3-miler as opposed to the 7 miles I had scheduled.

Have you ever raced when you probably should have skipped it?

That 4-7 mile run will have to wait...

It's week 3 of Cherry Blossom 10-miler Training. I cross-trained on the Monday rest day with a trampoline class at my gym. I did the minimum of 3 miles. My calves and quads hurt, but I did it.

Last night, I realized that the 4-7 miles of interval training were going to have to wait. My 4-year old popped a fever and has been acting lethargic. We went to the doctor. He doesn't have the flu. He passed the quick strep, so we just sit and wait. No gym for mommy or school for Squirty and I hate early morning runs in the dark.

I don't mind being a little off on my training, but I hate missing the two longer runs of the week. I'm really more upset because he's going to miss his Valentine's party at school.

Happy training!

Cherry Blossom 10-Miler Training Day 1

So... A little over a month ago, I found out I won the lottery... figuratively. I had applied for the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler lottery and my name was drawn as a runner for the race. I also signed up for the intermediate virtual training plan. It starts today. I'm supposed to run between 2 and 4 miles at an easy pace. This morning, we had lovely freezing rain on top of the snow we got Friday.

This is what it looks like outside. My wonderful husband has already shoveled our sidewalk, but they community association doesn't shovel unless we get at least 3 inches of snow.

I could go to the gym. Except Milk Dud has a snotty nose and looks like this:

I'm not one of those parents who dumps a sick kid in the gym childcare. I took my well kids there last year when there were sick kids and they brought home several colds and the norovirus twice. Vomiting small children isn't fun for anyone and with the new super bug that is going around this year, I don't want to take them unless I have no other choice. 

So, my choices are to run on the ice in the dark when my husband gets home from work, skip the training run, or to find some alternate training. We have a little-used exercise bike. I hate the exercise bike, but I am thinking that doing 30 minutes on there tonight while watching TV. It isn't the same training, but it is cardio and will be less pain on my joints. I know I need to work out or I will go crazy and look like this:

What do you do for alternate training when your plans don't happen the way you want?

11 Days until Ragnar!

I'm going to try and blog every day until Ragnar and then blog about it when I get home :) It's only 11 days away! Aside from a small problem in May when I just didn't feel like running and the last couple of weeks when I was getting just a tad frustrated, my training has been great. I followed the beginner training plan from the Ragnar site for the most part and feel very comfortable running 5+ miles.

Yesterday, we had beautiful weather and I had a nice, but slow, 7.3 mile run with some of my teammates. Unfortunately, both boys are sick, so I didn't get to run my last 60-minute hill training this morning. I hope to be able to get a run in tomorrow... or maybe tonight. I'm really hoping they don't give the terrible cold to me.

How are you taking advantage of the cooler fall-like weather and lower humidity?