So as Christmas weekend was wrapping to a close I started to plan out my running schedule for the week. I had hoped to run a 3.5 miler, a 5 miler, a day of cross training in the middle, and have the culmination of my week be an 8 mile long run. Unfortunately, although it was a solid plan I got a little curve ball that through it off. In addition to trading presents at Christmas, our families also decided to spread a stomach flu. As my Sunday night shift came to a close I started to feel an upset stomach coming on. In the next few hours, I was at home laying in bed with fevers, chills and muscle aches. It turns out that nearly everyone at our family christmas ended up contracting a stomahc flu. Although I was sick, I thankfully missed out on the vomiting part of the bug. Overall, it took me a solid 3 days to recover from.
Being behind on three workouts, I really didn't know what to do. Do I back up my schedule a little bit and skip a long run, or do I skip my mid range runs and just try to rock out the week's long run which would be an 8 miler. Overall, since we were planning on going away for New Years Weekend with some friends, I thought the best thing to do would be to get the long run out of the way.
So, on Friday Dec 31st, I set out for an 8 mile run. Thankfully, it was sunny, 40 degrees and not all that windy. I started out at my ideal long run pace of 10 min / mile. After about a mile I was starting to have my doubts as to whether this run was going to be possible, I felt pretty tired ... like my cold may have knocked out more of my endurance than I thought. I kept pushing through and ultimately got in a good groove. I made it to ~6.25 miles (further than when I hit problems on my last long run) before I really had to take my first 1-2 minute walk. All in all, the last 1.75 miles wasn't my best, but I ended up pushing through. I hit 8 miles in ~1 hr 22 mins. Not my best run by any stretch, but given my sickness earlier in the week I was just happy that I got it done.
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