My reward for quitting smoking (it's been ten whole days now!)was to contract possibly the nastiest flu I've had in a decade...not happy! After my long(est ever!)run on Sunday I pulled up and started to cough....and haven't stopped for a week. Fatigue, fever, sinusitis, aches and pains, even an attack of shingles. Sadly I never realise that I'm run down and stressed out until AFTER my body melts down and it's too late to do anything about it.
I took most of the week off work...usually my job is quite stress free but at the moment there are some staffing issues that are quite worrying, and now I owe a whole bunch of sick leave, more depressing still...
I'm trying to regain my health by hitting myself with foods and supplements that I know make my body sing. Echinacea, barleygrass, Olive leaf extract....it's scary to think about how quickly i got sick, and just how ill i got. I'm still producing copious amounts of boogers and coughing up quite a lot of phlegm, which means it's not entirely safe to run yet.
Buttttttt, i did go for just the tiniest run this morning. More to allay my fears than anything else, I was frightened that I'd never be able to run again (cos fitness wears off in a week, i was sure). I ran a one minute cadence test (160 steps per minute, I'm planning to work up to 180) then coughed my hole out! But a kilometre later I was feeling so good I ran a half kilometre just to test the waters. I almost cried with elation, it felt so damn right to be running again, stretching my legs out and slurping down cool morning air. I cough feel the goo in my chest but my breathing still wasn't as bad as when i smoked, so i count that as a victory. I wasn't supposed to be running really, i had the wrong shoes on and everything but i just didn't really give a crap. I'm planning to carefully run some short intervals this week while I continue to heal, and start building back up next week.
I think i really needed this, in a weird way. My motivation was flagging and i was focussing heavily on times and goals and weight and on not being where i wanted to be, when i should have just been rejoicing in the freedom and joy of being able to run at all.
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