Flu Me to the Moon

I'll start off by stating I won't get graphic at all in the following post. I'll gloss over all the terribleness that having caught the flu saddles one with...but here's what it means to my running schedule. My Saturday LSD got pushed to Sunday because of time constraints. It was here, while babysitting my little cousin that the exposure to the illness began. But even though I felt "off" late on Saturday night, I reasoned that it must be mental, and there's no way a virus could have infected me that fast. So Sunday I waited until the late afternoon was at it's snow-blanket sunniest, and took off for a 12 mile LSD.

It was fine. Actually, a lot finer than I remember 12 miles ever being before. Upon arriving home I stretched like the Dickens, and sure, I felt tired, I'm not a machine, but otherwise OK. So for dinner I stuffed myself with lots of nutrient dense foods and protein supplements that I had picked up at Whole Foods market that morning. I had even just finished reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan (which isn't necessarily vegan oriented, but has a good all around get closer to the earth and know what you're eating message), that a friend had lent me, and was fired up about trying to start my own little garden of goodness come Spring. So with visions of sugar plumbs (or at least basil & mint leaves) dancing through my head, I was enjoying the evening; then the night came...

SO the polite way to get through this is to say I lost all the nutrients I had tried to gain after completing that late afternoon 12 mile run. Fast forward to Tuesday night (right about...now), and at most I've had a handful of crackers here or there in the past few days. I think I'm at the tail end of the terribleness, but I'm really curious as to what impact this shock to the system will have to my expected running schedule this week, which is R-4-9-5-R-18-C (R = Rest; C = Cross training). I've already skipped the 4 mile Tuesday run. I'm considering just pushing everything back a day, if I feel up for a 4 miler tomorrow, OR, if not, then push everything back 2 days, and drop either the 4 or 5 miler along the way. The weather is certainly not helping much either, as we're faced with forecasts of icy & snowy conditions all week. Today & Tomorrow supposedly being the worst of it. We'll see how things go. It's seems like my body & the weather are pitting themselves against me, an internal & external winner take all (though there's not much to take, so, ultimately, trick's on them) struggle for my eternal soul. We're really rapidly approaching the culmination of this whole training process. At a mere 6 weeks away from race day, this noted terribleness may just be a hiccup in the overall process...maybe for the next marathon 1) I'll move to somewhere with more consistently awesome weather 2) Become more diligent in quarantining the infected away from my person at all times; if this were the onset of the zombie plague, I'd be showing signs of turning into the walking dead already. I certainly feel close enough to that now. Anyway...keep well folks.