Liftoff

AM: 19 miles. Originally, I had today pencilled in for 24 miles @ 85% MP, around 6:45. Then I thought, why not 26? So naturally I wanted to run a marathon today.

My wife's parents were in town yesterday and things were nice. Cousins over too, all the kids running around and swimming. Rather suddenly, my older daughter threw up, and continued to do so for the next 12 hours.

My wife took the first shift with her until a little after midnight, so I got some sleep, then I took my turn. Elise finally stopped throwing up around 2:30am. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't a terrible ordeal either. She was so sick and exhausted, and all she asked for was a little water or gatorade.

I dozed a little more, everone was sleeping, then headed out to meet the group. Between the sleep deprivation and endless rain we've been getting, the run felt a bit distant and unreal. 11 or 12 miles rolled by on pace when I got a stomach cramp. I tried to recover and get back on pace, but it wasn't happening.

The rest of the day passed in a haze for everyone in the family. Looking back, I think I may have had the start of this flu on Thursday, but who knows. Kids bounce back so fast, Elise was back on her bike by lunch today.

AM: 8 miles. Woke up tired with a raw stomach, rain and lightning. I checked my email and saw that my boss was advising us to work at home due to area flooding. My mood improved instantly, and I loped through a pleasant run on the treadmill.

I've been on an 80s retro trip lately (thanks Mike...I think), particularly in terms of music and games. When I get obsessed with something I tend to beat it to death, only then can I move on. I hit that point sometime last week, but I'm still bludgeoning the horse. No coincidence that my illness came on as I was burning through Peter Hook's memoir for Joy Division.

On the other hand, I've managed to avoid downloading any emulators thus far- I know where that path leads. Since the original Nintendo came out when I was in 9th grade or so, I was naturally a fan. I think I liked PC games even better though. One of my favorites was Bard's Tale, a prototypical role-playing game where you directed a party of warriors, magicians, etc. through mazes gaining weapons and experience points. The combat system was text-based, and there was a lot of combat, which ultimately meant you were spending a lot of time just grinding out stats and slowly mapping the contours of large mazes. For whatever reason, I found that much more appealing than FPS and games that required tight coordination and reflexes.

Perhaps I'm just drawing parallels because the brain seems programmed to do that, but from where I'm standing now as a distance runner I can see the similarities.

AM: 6 miles. Last night my younger daughter got her turn with the stomach flu. My wife and I are getting the barf patrol down cold at least.

PM: 10 miles. Hot flashes and nausea heading to track, but I comforted myself with the thought that I was going to one of the few public places where it's acceptable to put your hands on your knees and barf your guts out.

Today was finally a full day of sun, 90 degrees/78 DP to start with a bit of cooling into the workout. Not one of my favorites today, but most of my teammates like it: 14 X 400 WITH STOP REST AFTER EACH. 1:30 REST BETWEEN ITEMS 1 & 2, 1:20 REST BETWEEN 2 & 3, 1:10 REST BETWEEN 3 & 4, 1:00 REST AFTER 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8, THEN CONTINUE DEDUCTING 10 SECONDS PER ITEM ENDING WITH :10 BETWEEN ITEMS 13 & 14.

No blazing splits today, but Hunter, Lee and I worked well together. My goals were to stick around 75 and not throw up, so I'll call it a success.

1. 1:17.1
2. 1:12.4
3. 1:15.1
4. 1:13.4
5. 1:14.1
6. 1:13.3
7. 1:14.0
8. 1:16.7
9. 1:14.8
10. 1:15.3
11. 1:15.8
12. 1:16.9
13. 1:17.1
14. 1:15.9

AM: 7 miles, no rain!

PM: 8 miles. I woke up with a sore throat and runny nose. I think this may be the first time in my life I've got straight from stomach flu to head cold. For now, I'm going to tell myself that my body knows what it's doing - purging itself before TCM?

Late afternoon run on the treadmill, easy pace alternating incline from 1-5 to pass the time. I really need to get more hills in the next six weeks.

AM: 7 miles.

PM: Nothing. Sick wife, busy work.

7 miles at lunch. No AM run.

My wife and I have an intricate system in place to ensure we can be hands-on with our kids, not get fired, and run. The fatal flaw in the design is a complete lack of redundancy. So when one of us gets sick or especially busy, the whole thing can collapse like a house of cards.

On the positive side, we are on the rebound. I woke up feeling Mostly Good for the first time in over a week. I opted for a minor workout at lunch - not that there was much of a choice at noon in Florida in August. 1 warmup, 4 miles @ MP (23:40 - 5:55 avg), 1 coolodown, then 1 more MP mile since it started to pour.

On Sunday I'm going to reattempt the long steady state run from last weekend.

0. I have no desire to write about being sick anymore, but this log will be useless if I don't write about the bad patches too.

Stomach virus continues to hang around. I felt pretty good for most of Friday. Late afternoon I even planned to move long run to Saturday AM. Planned to attack Clearwater bridges with Mike.

As I went to bed Friday night I started to feel waves of nausea, hoped it would be better. I woke up a few hours later and it was worse, so I backed out of the planned run. I like to be reliable in my training, for myself and my training partners, but it wasn't really a choice.

Most of Saturday I lay around feeling lousy. I did start reading Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing with my older daughter, which was fun. Partly because I liked those books a lot as a kid. Partly because after six years of picture books it feels like we're getting somewhere. We're starting in on Gravity's Rainbow next week.

Very gradually through the day I started feeling better, but never good. I'd probably be worried about cancer, but my wife has it too.