Week In Review – Stop The World!

What a week! Sometimes the world just feels a little too much and with lots to do and a cold doing its work on my immune system, much of this week outside of work was a real “time out” to give me a chance to recover. I may not have worked out much, but I’m still linking up with Jessie @ The Right Fits and Jess @ Jess Runs ATL to share how I spent my time and remind us all to listen to our bodies and take a rest when we need it!

 

Just to prove how little I did, here’s how my week turned out:

Monday – rest (parents’ evening)
Tuesday – bike @ the gym rest
Wednesday – short run rest
Thursday – Ashtanga yoga
Friday – PT session with Steve
Saturday – parkrun
Sunday – 5 miles

Monday was always going to be a “rest” day as I had another parents’ evening. Unfortunately, by the time I was finished the demands of teaching all day and speaking all night had left me wiped out. Although I started the day feeling perfectly well, by the time I arrived home I was feeling stuffed up and rather hoarse. A cold had arrived and from that point on it was quite clear the cold was going to stay!

On Tuesday I had thought I might have a gentle cycle then sit in the steam room to clear my head – I even took my kit with me so I could go straight to the gym after work! – but by the time I was driving home this was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. The cold was making me feel exhausted as all my energy was going on teaching my classes during the day, so I decided to call it quits and head home for a relaxing evening catching up on some tv. Definitely the right decision.

I carried on in a similar vein on Wednesday as I knew I was just too congested to run. While my symptoms were technically “above the neck” and a gentle run would have been ok, with nothing specific on the horizon to train for, I knew I would benefit far more from the rest. No run, no orchestra, just another night cuddled in with the cat and watching tv. A little frustrating, but for the best.

By Thursday I felt a little more like getting on with things so went to yoga as usual. Theoretically fine, but as it turns out breathing through a congested nose whilst in downward dog is a bit of a challenge! I took it easy and didn’t push things so by the end of the class I did feel a bit better.

And by Friday I knew it was time to do a bit more again. Yes there was still a bit of congestion, but this was more the residual effects of the cold rather than me still feeling ill, so I headed over to the studio for a PT session with Steve as I knew this wouldn’t need much exertion and I could stop to blow my nose any time I needed to. Since I want to build a pre-marathon training base, we did some work with the TRX.

After a good sleep on Friday night I was feeling pretty good on Saturday morning so there was no way I was going to miss parkrun. It was Perth parkrun’s 4th birthday and lots of runners were going in fancy dress (sadly I had no time to turn my attention to that this year, but sine the theme was “wacky runners” I decided this was a good day to break out some of my more “interesting” running tights). Due to the effects of some work going on around our usual route, this time we were on the alternate course which is 2 laps of the park on the tarmac path – no mud splashed on my nice running tights 🙂 It was also freezing cold so I picked thermal tights and cold weather gear to keep me as warm as possible.

Given I’d not run for a week I had no idea how I would feel so my plan was to start out easy then push on if I felt ok. This resulted in a huge Royal Flush Negative Split (8:38, 8:13, 7:56 and 7:10 for the last nubbin). It was never going to be my speediest day, but it was good to know that I was ok to run and could up the pace a bit without pushing hard.

I have to say, I never really felt like I got properly warm and was aware of the chill in the air the whole time. I had been worried that I might have overdone the warm clothing, but in the end I was glad of it all!

Run done and barcode scanned there was the much more important business of cake. All the runners had been asked to contribute something for the table so there was lots of home baking (ours was shop bought thanks to time limitations) but to offset the gluttony we were also donating to the local foodbank. Having listened to a talk from the manager of the nearest foodbank to where I work earlier in the week, I was utterly horrified at the numbers of people who were needing to turn to such facilities and how this compared to the donations they received. I duly went straight out to stock up on suitable items to donate. In the grand scheme of things I spent an amount that I barely notice as I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to not have to think about food bills, but everything that was donated by parkrunners this weekend should make a huge difference to local people at this time of year.

Back at the cake table, I chose something that bore a passing resemblance to the cake version of sticky toffee pudding and I was NOT disappointed (no photo as I was too cold to try and fish my phone out and was scared I might drop my cake which would have been a DISASTER!). I followed that up with a piece of mint traybake which was a bit like a minty brownie. Since I tend to run parkrun fasted, I basically had cake for breakfast. No complaints about that from me!

After a few errands the rest of the day was pretty chilled, although I did hear that Santa’s furry friends were back in town so went for a look while we were there and was pleased to find that unlike last week the reindeer were in attendance (I think they might be tapering for the Big Night since they were just lying around eating!) along with alpacas, donkeys and pygmy goats (so cute!).

I had another great sleep that night and awoke feeling great (if still a little phlegmy) on Sunday. I was keen to get back to normal and have a run but wasn’t sure how far to go. In the end I chose a route which would allow me to make a decision that would either result in 3.5ish miles or extend in a variety of ways to add a little more.

It was cold again so I layered up and through the first part of the run the ground alternated between covered in leaves and covered in frost. It looked beautiful.

In the end I chose to extend the run as I was feeling good and enjoying being out catching up with the Marathon Talk podcast (it wouldn’t be a Sunday run without Martin and Tom!) so ended up with 5 miles. I certainly could have gone on, but that felt right for this point in time.

Later in the afternoon we ventured out again to to enjoy the St Andrew’s Day celebrations in town. We were really just interested in seeing a bit of “bagrock” from the Red Hot Chilli Pipers who never disappoint.

Rather than some shaky phone footage, here’s a taster of their usual material. Performed live there’s also a singer, dancers and, of course, they wear kilts.

Overall a pretty quiet week, but I made up for it a bit at the weekend!

Would you run or rest with a cold?
Any exciting festive events where you live?