Running with a cold

*Written yesterday

I’ve been dealing with a cold for the past week and a half.  I spent several days thinking I was going to fight it off without getting too sick, but by last Wednesday, the cold was clearly winning.  I was very lucky not to get too sick during training for MCM, and previously, being congested usually meant I’d do something low key at the gym if I worked out at all.  

My experience running over the last week and a half of cold-y-ness has been interesting though.  Over the course of this cold I have had days where running was completely not happening, which is expected.  I’ve had days where my runs were miserable, but these were not the days I felt the worse.  Those were the days I felt like I was fighting off the cold but hadn’t gotten fully sick.  The days I felt the worse, excepting the 2 days I didn’t run, I ended up having really great runs where I pushed through the cold somehow and felt strong and good.  This includes 2 long runs, a hill interval run, and a tempo run this morning.  I haven’t done hill intervals or tempo runs in months since I was babying my right leg/knee.  

It’s very odd how my body has almost set the cold aside on some days to really perform well.  Maybe I was more determined mentally on those days to run my best?  Interestingly, as soon as I stopped running, I felt worse than before my run.  Exercise is such an odd thing…