After the last couple of blog entries, I was thinking today I had some more to say along those lines because I was feeling in a philosophical mood. But now I feel that's too many posts in a row, so I'll write something quick about running related stuff.
Ever since I became a runner, I have gotten sick a lot less than I ever did before. I might get a cold once a year, and that's it. And even if I am sick, I usually feel a lot better than I used to feel before I was a runner. I think that being a runner -- and all the things that are tied into that for me which include strength training, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, etc. -- has in general increased my overall health.
However, it's been noted that a lot of runners get sick after a period of heavy training or after a particularly strenuous race, especially marathons. One study supposedly showed that runners who completed a marathon were about 2 to 6 times more likely to come down with a cold soon after the race than runners who had trained for the marathon but were then unable to run it. You can see the article I read that from at the link below from the New York Road Runners' Club website:
http://web1.nyrrc.org/divisions/training/immunity1.html
It's a pretty good article written by Shelly Glover who has a Master's degree in exercise physiology and is a running coach.
I started off with a sore throat on Friday, and it's now Sunday. I think yesterday was when I felt the sickest, but it wasn't enough to make me lounge around in bed all day but just enough that I skipped my usual Saturday run. When I woke up today I still didn't feel 100%, so I decided to take my third day in a row off from running, which is a very rare event for me! I usually run even when I do feel sick because I never feel all that bad.
I'm pretty sure that I got sick as a result of racing the Newnan's Lake 15k very hard in combination with having been worn down from so much running at the beginning of the year. My average mileage for the start of 2008 was just over 10 miles day, which would've put me on track to run over 3600 miles this year, a substantial increase over the almost 2900 miles I ran in 2007. So I think with the stress of having done so much running as well as running a hard race opened the window for me to get sick.
Getting sick is something that seems to happen to me only after I've reached a new higher level of training. For example the first time I ran over 60 miles a week twice in a row, I think I got a sore throat for a couple of days the week afterwards. But until now, it hasn't stopped me running as I never felt sick enough to stop! This time, I think it was the heavy training in addition to the race that knocked my immunity low enough that I finally felt sick enough to take three days off from running. However, I'm hoping that taking these few days off will let me recouperate fully and get back on track right away. Taking a few days off was a matter of sacrificing some sub-par training and resting up so I can get back to it strong next week. I'm already feeling better and looking forward to running my usual 10 miler on Monday. It's a matter of looking at the big picture rather than fretting about getting off the routine.
Ever since I became a runner, I have gotten sick a lot less than I ever did before. I might get a cold once a year, and that's it. And even if I am sick, I usually feel a lot better than I used to feel before I was a runner. I think that being a runner -- and all the things that are tied into that for me which include strength training, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, etc. -- has in general increased my overall health.
However, it's been noted that a lot of runners get sick after a period of heavy training or after a particularly strenuous race, especially marathons. One study supposedly showed that runners who completed a marathon were about 2 to 6 times more likely to come down with a cold soon after the race than runners who had trained for the marathon but were then unable to run it. You can see the article I read that from at the link below from the New York Road Runners' Club website:
http://web1.nyrrc.org/divisions/training/immunity1.html
It's a pretty good article written by Shelly Glover who has a Master's degree in exercise physiology and is a running coach.
I started off with a sore throat on Friday, and it's now Sunday. I think yesterday was when I felt the sickest, but it wasn't enough to make me lounge around in bed all day but just enough that I skipped my usual Saturday run. When I woke up today I still didn't feel 100%, so I decided to take my third day in a row off from running, which is a very rare event for me! I usually run even when I do feel sick because I never feel all that bad.
I'm pretty sure that I got sick as a result of racing the Newnan's Lake 15k very hard in combination with having been worn down from so much running at the beginning of the year. My average mileage for the start of 2008 was just over 10 miles day, which would've put me on track to run over 3600 miles this year, a substantial increase over the almost 2900 miles I ran in 2007. So I think with the stress of having done so much running as well as running a hard race opened the window for me to get sick.
Getting sick is something that seems to happen to me only after I've reached a new higher level of training. For example the first time I ran over 60 miles a week twice in a row, I think I got a sore throat for a couple of days the week afterwards. But until now, it hasn't stopped me running as I never felt sick enough to stop! This time, I think it was the heavy training in addition to the race that knocked my immunity low enough that I finally felt sick enough to take three days off from running. However, I'm hoping that taking these few days off will let me recouperate fully and get back on track right away. Taking a few days off was a matter of sacrificing some sub-par training and resting up so I can get back to it strong next week. I'm already feeling better and looking forward to running my usual 10 miler on Monday. It's a matter of looking at the big picture rather than fretting about getting off the routine.
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