As the month began, I felt a little bit of a scratchy throat on Saturday, February 1st, but got through our normal long bike ride OK. The following day, I definitely felt like I was coming down with something. Hoping it was just a 24-hour thing, I decided to do our Sunday run on Monday morning before work. Monday rolled around and I definitely wasn’t feeling up for the hard intervals on the schedule, so I just did 8 miles at Z2.
I actually felt better as the day went on. It’s amazing what fresh air and endorphins can do for you! But whew. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I knew this was going to suck. Since I work from home, I’ve gotta feel pretty crappy to take sick days, but I took them.
I didn’t find out that I had the flu until Thursday. I’d been quarantining in our upstairs guest bedroom so it kinda didn’t matter if it was a cold, the flu, COVID, or something else. Thankfully, Katy never got sick! But on Thursday, I decided to test just so I could put a label on this thing.
Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, I was never miserable. My nose was running like crazy, and I felt very tired. I had a bit of a cough, but no muscle aches or any of the more severe symptoms. I got a few items to keep my morale up as I fought through everything.
I am usually apprehensive about taking any medication. But with this? I got the special Sudafed where they check my ID to make sure I’m not Walter White.
As quickly as I crashed into feeling awful on Tuesday morning, I felt dramatically better throughout Friday afternoon.
By Saturday morning, I was on the fence about doing our long bike ride. My Instagram story is the best way to sum up my mood:
Eventually, I showed up. I throttled the workout down slightly for the second half when I saw my heart rate was creeping up a little higher than usual. But overall, I felt pretty good!
I made it back to the gym the following Monday and it was EMPTY.
This is probably a combination of New Year’s Resolutions that started to bust combined with the flu. I saw that this is the highest rate of flu infections in Tennessee in more than a decade. How lucky that I got to be part of it! 🙄
It snowed again the following month. Never do I doubt my commitment to this silly sport more than when I hop into a pool under these kinds of conditions. Winter is the dumbest season.
The rest of the month was loaded with hill workouts to get me prepared for the run course in Puerto Rico. What’s funny is that each of these hill workouts has gotten a little bit easier, at least mentally. I was more mentally drained from the first hill repeats where I sprinted up and down 8 times. My final hill workout had 16 sprints!
Maybe I’m being arrogant, but I really am not worried about the hills in Puerto Rico. I’ve done a bunch of recon on the course. There’s the famous steep hill by the historic fort, but otherwise, there’s nothing on that course that I don’t run every single day here in middle Tennessee.
If there’s a concern, it’s the heat and humidity. I’m still wearing long sleeves and gloves for most of my runs. Puerto Rico is going to be a tad different compared to that. I like to think it’ll be OK!
Onward to March, and warmer weather!
