Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

I cannot believe it.  I am sick.  Not the flu, I am sure, as my daughter had the same thing last week, but rotten enough that I can't muster the energy to work out.  Awful cough, achy, stuffy head, exhausted.  I really am rarely sick.  I don't think I have been to the doctor in eight years, other than to have a baby or two or four.  It seems impossible that just when I am being consistent about working out, I come down with something that sends me back to the starting line.  Two steps forward, two steps back. 

The 3-mile run last weekend went great.  I maintained my 11:30 pace and my goal was to run 2 to 3 miles at least 3 days this week and then bump up to 4 miles for my "long run" this weekend.  After that, I was going to continue with 2 to 3 mile runs during the week and a 4 mile run on the weekend, focusing on increasing my pace, for as long as it took to get down to 10:00 mile pace for 4 miles.  After that, my hope was to continue with shorter runs during the week, speeding up pace.  In the past, when I have been on a "getting in shape binge", I have always focused on increasing miles, but this time, I would like to work on running faster, so I didn't plan on taking my long runs beyond one hour, which would be no more than 5 to 6 miles at my original 12:00 pace.  Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it!

But now, I am sitting here like an achy lump of lumpiness, wondering if I will be able to even get a decent walk in this weekend.  So sad.  And with this cough, I'm not sure how long it will take to get back to where I was, which wasn't very far.  I guess I will go back and read my post about "Embracing the 12-minute mile, because I think will be needing to do that for awhile.

The good news is, my kitchen is still clean!  My great family has been helping a lot, especially last night when I was exhausted from working all day despite my illness.  I operate under the assumption that I am completely irreplaceable at my job, so I probably owe an apology to a number of people who sat in my office while I tried not to cough on them.   You have about 7 days to know if you are in the clear. My Dear Husband, who holds down the home fort after school on Thursdays, prepared an awesome  Chili Verde Enchilada concotion and someone who wasn't me cleaned it all up!

As Dear Husband and the 3 girls are taking in a basketball game tonight and baby boy is asleep, I am going to go fill my neti-pot, drink my Airborne, take some Benadryl, and dream dreams of running like the wind toward clean kitchens under a rainbow in the distance.  In actuality, I will probably dream about snakes because of the cheesy snake/submarine movie I watched on the Syfy channel while the kids napped today.  I would typically avoid a snake movie and would definitely avoid a submarine movie (two of my major phobias)  But this "Snakes on a Sub" movie sucked me in because it starred Luke Perry from Beverly Hills 90210 and the girl who played Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives for a few years back in the '90's.  Ironically, and sadly, these were  two shows that I used to watch back when I COULD actually run like the wind.  Plus, I LOVE to watch cheesy Syfy movies when I am sick.  Maybe I will wake up and a miraculous recovery will have occured.  I hope so, because I am dying to continue my audio-book.  No listening unless I am working out!  NO exceptions!  Not even for sickies.