The one thing I never thought about was what if I get sick? Well, this past week, I had asthmatic bronchitis and was told not to run until my breathing got better. I felt like I was going crazy. I mean, I just started running and already I’m addicted to it!
Marti, my running partner, was also not feeling well so we both took the week off. It was a tough week. I kept thinking that this would interfere with my training schedule. About six days after taking antibiotics and other meds, I decided to go to the gym. Paul, my trainer at New York Sports Club, told me he thought we should take it easy. I wasn’t happy about that. I wanted to work hard and sweat the sickness out of me.
The next day, I met Paul to run on the treadmill. He suggested that I start indoors. We were both doing some interval training – 1 minute fast, 1 minute walk. I later read that interval training is more of a five minute on five minute off technique. After about a mile or so, he stopped and went back to work and I continued on the mill until I did a 5K.
I left the gym feeling relieved. I needed to run. It was a physical feeling that made me feel that way.
The next day, I had another training session with Paul. This time, he wasn’t so easy on me. I was doing a combination of dips, pull ups and deadlifts among other things. When I got home that night, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go in the hot tub but my sister, Lori, slept over and she refused to go outside in 30 degree weather in a bathing suit!
We talked for a while and went to bed relatively early. I knew that at 8:30 am, I was going to meet Marti halfway in between our homes and run the Long Beach Boardwalk. According to the schedule, we only had to run 5 miles. We walked several blocks to the beach, walked up the ramp and started to run from one end of the Boardwalk to the other. Each way is approximately 2.1 miles. For the additional .9 miles, we ran off the boardwalk at the end and ran down side streets in the West End.
“It is really nice running with you,” she said to me. “I really enjoy that we go at the same pace and that no one is faster than the other. Although, I would like to get a running coach come the spring.”
“I think that would be a great idea,” I said. “But were do you find one?”
“Not sure,” she said, “but we’ll start researching once we are ready.”
We have a bunch of runs coming up. The Turkey Trot, the Jingle Bell Race and the ½ marathon in January in Disney! We even talked about running other races in other parts of the country.
“I guess we should get past Disney and go from there,” I said. She just smiled.
As we were running, I was thinking how good I felt. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t hurting, as usual. I just felt good. I ran and I didn’t even realize that I was running. We talked, we laughed and we cried while we ran and as we were running, we looked over at the beach and saw the fierce waves.
“You got to be nuts to go surfing on a day like today,” she said.
“You got to be nuts running in this weather!” I said.
Related articles
- A Runner’s Diary: Running After Being Sick (blogcritics.org)
- Runner’s Diary: My First Long Run (hilarytopper.com)
- A Runner’s Diary: Aiming for a Half Marathon (hilarytopper.com)
- A Runner’s Diary: The First 5K (hilarytopper.com)
- A Runner’s Diary: Sneaker Store Vs. Running Store (hilarytopper.com)
