Training miles completed this week: 0
Total training miles completed: 91
Training miles left: 140 + taper off period
Training runs left: 22 + taper off period
Hello again - thanks for dropping in this week.
I've been dreading writing this week's post as it's made me feel like I'm stepping into a huge confessional box ready to announce an unforgivable sin...
I haven't run this week.
After last week's post, I finally succumbed to the cold/flu that my wife and daughter have had and it knocked the stuffing out of me a bit. I was in no fit state to run on Friday night (temperature, aches, cough etc) and I've still got a bit of a chesty cough lingering around at the moment. I've felt really guilty about the whole thing all week.
I've also felt very frustrated. I'd been psyching myself up for that first 10 mile run since New Year and to miss it felt like a real blow. I'm not convinced I'll be able to run this coming Friday either which will mean I'll have missed three overall. I'm hoping I'll be feeling 100% by next Wednesday.
I've spent a lot of time this week trying to gain some perspective and talk myself out of some of this guilt and my reasoning is this... It's that time of year when there's a good chance you're going to catch something and having a chronic illness like diabetes actually means your immune system isn't as effective at dealing with or fighting off those sorts of things. I also discovered from some reading around, that running and exercising in general can also reduce the effectiveness of your immune system. You can read the science of that here if that's your sort of thing. As that article also suggests, running with anything on your chest as it can end up affecting your heart with potentially fatal consequences.
I also decided that I'm obviously not the first person to train for the marathon, I'm not the first person to get a bit of flu while doing it and I'm not the first person who's had to miss a few training runs so, whilst I may feel guilty, I probably shouldn't. And besides, it's probably better to miss a couple in February rather than get to the end of March and miss the bigger distances and head to London feeling underprepared. My final thought on the subject is that I may have dodged all the snow we're going to get as well so the risk of slipping and breaking something may also have been avoided.
Hopefully I'll return to some form of running by next week.
As I've written previously, having a bit of a cold also affects your blood sugar levels, so after last week's good news from the hospital, I've spent most of the time since, battling high blood sugar. It becomes very much about guess work when you're ill as the normal ratios and guides I use to keep control no longer apply. Thankfully my levels seem to have just about returned to normal over the last day or two so this hopefully bodes very well for a return to action very soon.
It's been another good week for fundraising, adding another £70 to the total, making it £427 overall and another 73 days to find the rest before the big race! Thanks again to everyone who's donated so far - it's very generous of you. As a reminder, you can visit the fundraising page by clicking on the link. All money raised is being split between Diabetes UK and The Sheffield Children's Hospital Charity - two very worthy causes.
The one plus point I've taken away from this week's frustration is that I have little appetite when I'm under the weather and so I've managed to lose 1lb this week despite the lack of running - I'm now at 190lbs and I've lost about half the weight I wanted to lose. If I can maintain that then I should be around 180lbs by race day which would be an extra bonus.
I'll end it there for this week - I won't take up any more of your valuable time. Apologies there's not much positive news this week - hopefully that'll change next time I post. Thanks for reading this one - I appreciate they're not always brilliant and this week has been particularly self indulgent. Thanks for sticking with me - your support really helps and motivates me to keep going.
I hope you're all well and I'm looking forward to having better news to report next week.
Take care
Andy
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