Sun Run 2010: Another damn flu!
A few months ago during the H1N1 hysteria, I took the flu shot. I doubt it really did anything.
Just like what plagued my training schedule last year, I got another flu. This is twice this year, just like last year. It was not a bad flu by any means – just a very moderate instance of a sore throat, semi-sore limbs and lots of mucous coming out of the nose. What was ironic was that the run I did last Monday, the longest training run of the year, went routinely. The next day, I started feeling the tingles in the throat, so I took things very easy for the next few days and did not go to the gym.
I am ordinarily a fairly healthy person when it comes to my immune system, but the last few years have featured some sort of flu that takes me out of action for at least a few days. This year and last year were two minor flus so far. At the rate that I am going in 2010, this is a flu each month.
I had earlier expressed interest in healing my legs and specifically my calves, so this was my opportunity to take it easy.
Today I feel mostly healed so I headed off to the gym. My recovery schedule will be doing a day of 3 minute run, 1 minute walk (10 times); then 4 minute run, 1 minute walk (8 times), 5 minute run, 1 minute walk (7 times) before resuming my regular schedule. I did the first day today while watching the middle of the Super Bowl. The onside kick to begin the second half was one hell of a gamble, and amazingly, it paid off.
One other note of comment is that I finally donned a new pair of shoes – another inexpensive Walmart shoe special. I had been running with a very cheap pair for the last year and a half, so this is yet another new cheap pair. I started developing the feeling of a blister on my left pinky toe, so I have experience with new shoes and blisters – doesn’t matter how expensive the shoes are, it always happens. And I have defenses to prevent them from happening again. If these new shoes turn out well, great. If not, I’ve got my old reliable shoes (with holes in the mesh in the side, really glamorous – but functional).
Tags: sun run, sun run 2010
“during the H1N1 hysteria, I took the flu shot”
Curious – what was your reasoning?
“I started developing the feeling of a blister on my left pinky toe, so I have experience with new shoes and blisters – doesn’t matter how expensive the shoes are, it always happens.”
That was my experience too – it only didn’t happen on the most comfortable pair of runners I had, which also had big holes on the sides where the pinky toes were.
Good shoes are important. I’ve had problems develop with my calves and plantar because my shoes were providing me such poor support. Buddy, we are getting old. Depending on Walmart brand shoes is a bad gamble. I suggest you get some good NewBalance shoes or something.
Anthony – I took the H1N1 shot simply for the ‘hell of it’, I guess if the country was spending a bazillion dollars on it, might as well ‘cash in’ on the hysteria by getting it. At worse it would do nothing, at best it might prevent me from getting (what I think is) a regular flu. I don’t buy too much in the literature that the vaccinations will cause horrendous effects.
Jamil – I really think I should switch to barefoot one of these days. That said the next best alternative are the lightest and barest shoes possible. I’ve been monitoring very carefully my running style on the treadmill (without modification) and do notice I am a forefoot striker. I’ve also run with the expensive shoes and the cheap stuff, and quite frankly, they feel the same. Maybe if I was a heel runner it would be different. And yeah, we’re getting old. :( I think the body mass gain is the worst detriment to performance so far. No major knee damage or anything like that yet, however!
I’ve been trying to figure out why I haven’t gotten sick since eating pro-biotic yogurt twice a day (over a year now).
My guess is that part of it is due to the yogurt I’ve been eating (for the most part) being fortified with Vitamin D3, which it’s easy to become deficient in during the winter.
With only ‘minor flu’s’, though, it sounds like your body is doing a pretty good job handling things …