I’ve been missing for a few days.  Don’t know if you noticed…

It started Saturday morning when I woke up with a slight feeling in my sinuses.  I decided to walk the dog and jog a few miles with her so as to not over do my workout.  My goal was to get to the mountain Sunday morning.

Sunday morning I awoke with a little more “sick” feeling in my sinuses, but it went away and I went out to run the mountain.  I started out this time with RS.  He doesn’t like running much with other people, but we went about a mile together and he stopped to stretch and I went on.

This run was the best of my 4 mountain runs so far.  It was tough as usual.  800 feet of elevation in 2 miles with only one down hill section on the way up and that is near the beginning.  The wild thing was that I got to the top and was actually surprised that it came so soon.  I had run this 3 times prior, but this time it seemed much easier.  I credit some of that to it being 55 degrees and low humidity, but also the fact that these runs are really beginning to kick in some strength.

At the top and there is about a half mile of a slight gradient, but it is mostly flat.  As I ran, I looked at my watch and I was running between a 7:30 – 8:00 pace.  Shock.  I had just run up a mountain and I was able to run at a pace between my half marathon and 5k pace. Just a few weeks ago I was running about a 10:00 pace in this same place.  I took a moment to take a picture for my “I’m on top of the world” post and went back down the mountain and to the car.  I must say, this was possibly my most fun training run of my short two years.  I am not one to like workouts or to like hill runs, but this is a literal mountain and it is so cool to run it and see such progress.

Later that afternoon I started feeling lousy.  Just achy and tired.  I attributed it to not eating or drinking enough earlier in the day, but Monday I would find out when I woke up that it was not due to that, I was sick.

I spent two days in bed and went to the doctor and finally started feeling a bit better yesterday.

No running since Sunday, but at least I have a fun last run to remember.  I won’t run again until I feel better.  I am still congested and achy a bit. Hopefully I’ll be back in full swing this weekend.

Tom