Sick & Tired

   Greeting fellow runners! What the hell? Where have I been you ask? Sick, sick, sick! For almost two weeks now I've been fighting my way through a bugger of a chest cold. Picked it up somewhere at work. Went to my doctor and thankfully, it's not the return of the bronchitis that plagued me all last summer. I ran through all those coughs and difficult breathing once before. I really don't want to repeat that ever again. Unfortunately, there's research that's shown that my chances for getting it again the same time this year are extremely likely. Apparently, it repeats itself twice and then you're free of the stuff. Fun.

   Anyways, just because you're sick doesn't mean that life doesn't go on. I've been hitting the gym hard putting in some serious time doing my cross-training. I'm already feeling stronger. I'd really like to be able to complete three full sets of 10 pull ups by the end of the year. We're already halfway there! Rock on! Cross-training sounds like it would be something that'll work against my running goals. But, on the contrary, it's made me better than just running alone ever could. Starting to switch my focus away from mileage to length of time on my feet. Building endurance, not speed is the name of the game this year.

   Out of nowhere, my mom surprised us by getting us a late Christmas gift, a new treadmill. You'd think that as a distance runner, that would be the one piece of equipment that I'd already own. But, I never got around to buying one. I've always had a gym membership somewhere and I thought it was a waste of money. Well, with the march of time my son has gotten older and my wife's work schedule has now changed to midnights. That means I only have a very small two hour window in which to get my training in on most days. Not whole heck of a lot of time when you've gotta drive to the gym and log some serious miles. So, the addition of the treadmill means that I don't have to drive my truck around town like I stole it or log as many miles out there in this cold winter weather we've been having. A huge bonus! I'll be reviewing it's performance in the weeks to come!

   Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. I've been trying to do a lot of extra sleeping to kick this chest cold. Hopefully with some of the medicine that my doctor gave me and the comfort of not having to run outside in sub zero weather I'll be feeling better in no time. Sorry for the long delay in getting something out.

   Have a great night and put some miles into your life!