When You Encounter A Bump In the Road…

I have been training diligently over the past year.  When I was in between my half marathon trainings, I had been doing body weight High Intensity Interval Trainings (HIIT) to strengthen my core.  I have been getting faster and stronger.  This morning, I hit my weight goal of 165 lbs.  I have lost a total of 21 pounds since I ran my first half marathon on April. 

There are a lot of things that I have done right.  I have been following a training plan and have been trying to give myself enough downtime to allow my muscles to recover.  I have also been pushing myself on my speed and pace runs.  It has lead to PR’s in my 5k and 10k trainings. 

There are also many things I have done wrong.  I am still lazy when it comes to taking enough time to warm up and cool down.  I foam roll on a regular basis, but should be a little more consistent.  I know my training will never be perfect, but I am proud of where I am at.  So what do you do when you are 9 weeks into a 12 week training plan and you get sick?  I kept thinking that my race is in three weeks.

Last week I went on a business trip into the mountains.  I came back with several issues.  I had severe back pain and light headedness.  After a day or two I started to get migraines.  I felt like I was falling apart and the only thing I could think about was how all of my hard work was going to be wasted.  I went to the doctor and he said I had fluid in my right ear which was causing the light headedness.  He gave me a shot and meds for the migraine and I am going to go to the chiropractor for my back.  I wanted to run the second my head stopped hurting, but my wife (the only one with common sense in our relationship) told me that I really should just rest a little more.  Reluctantly, I listened.  See honey, I do listen on occasion.

From my research over the past year and a half, I know that I will not lose any gains that I have made if I take a little time off (research shows that you can take about 2 weeks off before you lose any progress).  I ran yesterday and was right where I needed to be.  My endurance isn’t quite where it should be, but that can be attributed to not feeling 100%.  I just need to remember that if I do not allow my body to heal, then I will probably injure myself more.  I am going to just follow the rest of my running plan and see what happens.  You can never stop random things from getting in the way of your training plans, but you can decide how to move forward.  Think positive and there are no limits to what you can do. 

Feel free to share things you have overcome in your running careers.