Running is Becoming Fun Again

I've taken most of the past week off (around 12 miles of running) to speed up recovery from the most annoying head cold I've ever had. It seems to have worked.

In that time, it's been a busy week, going into the weekend. Yesterday, our cross country team had a meet up in Presque Isle. We got back around 8pm last night, then it was get home, get to bed, then wake up early to meet up with the team again to volunteer at the Mt. Desert Island Marathon. Hagrid came along and provided lots of smiles for everyone.

This marathon holds a very special place in my heart. It was my first marathon. It was (and still is) my fastest marathon. I've run it seven times total and had a great time each time... even that one year I had stomach issues and had a disappointing performance.

The last time I was there in any capacity was when I ran it last in 2012 and PR'd with a time of 3:07:58. Being back there today at a water station and then a trip over to the finish and seeing the runners out there busting their tailss, smiling, having fun, and soaking in an electric, positive atmosphere fueled a desire... I can't wait to run it next year.

Plans

Just three weeks and I have a string of races to knock out. The first being a six mile trail race followed by an eight mile trail race the following weekend. Then, the weekend after that, a half marathon (on logging roads).

I did the eight mile trail race last year, but ran it out of shape and used it as a training run. My time was crazy slow. Looking forward to seeing how much I can beat the time by.

But for all of them, it'll be let's truly race these and see what I can do. It'll be fun, and they'll serve as a great building blocks as I work back up to being relatively speedy.

I'm registered for the Millinocket Marathon but am now strongly leaning towards knocking down to the half marathon. Just not there yet. Better to race something well and comfortably then struggle and get discouraged.

The Dry Cough From Hell

Still battling this drive cough. Yesterday morning, I set out for 14 miles on the logging roads at a moderate pace. Legs were definitely up for the task, but the frequent interruption of coughing fits, a handful of which I had to stop for, set me back and my splits were all over the place. To top it off, my stomach was a bit upset, requiring a few other unwanted pit stops. I only resulted in 8:18/mile when I probably would have been :30/mile faster otherwise.

It's an unproductive dry cough, the lovely remnant of a sore throat. It's coming up on two weeks now since it first onset. I'm quite annoyed... quite annoyed indeed.

Doing research, I read a lot of great things about Throat Coat tea and honey for this kind of thing. Low and behold, it turns out we had a brand new box of it in our extensive tea stash. I drank several cups yesterday afternoon, and for the first time in a week a half, without any Nyquil I slept through the night without waking up in a coughing fit. Psychosomatic or not, I'll take it. We'll see how I feel during my run later today.

On a different note, I managed in the upper 30s for mileage last week, including quality speed work. I'm quite happy to get at least into the mid-30s, which is what I've been doing on average for the past month. It fits my plans for now and I'm looking forward to racing later this month while being in somewhat decent shape.... first time that's happened in a long while.