Viral Intervals

Monday, I woke up seemingly tired, but it was Monday, after all. I got my run in, 5 miles outdoors, followed up with my prescribed strides. It was chilly, but a beautiful, sunny day. By noon, I had to check my thermostat, as the house had gotten a little colder. I turned on my fireplace and grabbed a blanket to continue working out of my home office in comfort. Oh yeah, you know what's coming already don't you? Suffice it to say, I was completely ignorant at this point.

My next conference call started at 1 PM, and I was key, however one item played in my favor. The host (thankfully NOT me this time) decided to go in reverse alphabetical order (that meant "A" for "Alex" was last up). We never got there. Nothing else would have saved me from what happened during the next hour. I never could have uttered a word. The house was fine, I wasn't. Those were chills and fever which preceded the rather urgent and unavoidable announcement that my body had now turned into a furious viral-replicating and spewing machine no longer capable of coherent thought. Well, at least I got my run in.

Tuesday is my day for intervals.... at least, it is now. I had a two mile warm-up, several intervals at a prescribed pace, and a two mile cool down. The thought of missing a workout struck more fear in me than getting sick during a run. You guessed it, I managed to get dressed and go for the workout. I hung in there through the warm up; a gentle, slow run. Then the intervals started. As I started my seventh and penultimate interval, the stomach cramps began to get much worse and [what happened during the next 10 minutes has been deleted from this blog]. Should I mention what a disruption dripping sweat is during this 10 minutes? If I could have somehow shut it off, I would have.

Could I quit? Please? Oh, pretty please? No. I started my seventh interval over, finished my eighth, and barely... just barely squeaked out my two mile cool-down before I was sick again. Somehow, I'm sure this is going to be good training for a marathon.