Down time

I am about 2 coughs away from bronchitis. I can feel the heaviness right above my lungs and I know this feeling all too well. Like I said, I haven't even had a cold for over a year so I can't be too surprised or upset that I'm sick now. It's a way of forcing a recovery that I probably wouldn't have taken otherwise and apparently needed to.

I haven't run since Tuesday. My mind is a little antsy but my body is sore with that distinct "fever" ache so I'm not going to push it. If I feel even slightly better tomorrow I might try to do a few miles. We'll see. No promises. I'd rather recover fully and go back to it strong than be off and on for the rest of the year. My body did not let me down for the marathon, it's the least I can do to thank it.

So what do I do for the rest of the year? I know what I'd like to do in the spring but that's still months away. There are a few 5Ks between now and the new year that I'll probably do just to keep racing. I'd like to stick to about 20-25 miles a week with a long run of 8-10 miles on the weekend. Probably 8 for awhile, then a 10 thrown in there every now and then. I'm really looking forward to adding back some strength training which I completely dropped in the last 8 weeks of marathon training. I think there's a boot camp starting up in January in my town and I've been wanting to do it since I moved here 4 years ago but I was never in good enough shape. I'm not really a class person but this is outside and it looks punishing enough (wall squats, hill sprints, pushups, pullups) so I think I'll give it a shot.

I've consciously cut back on carbs this week. I enjoyed the freedom of marathon training regarding my calorie intake but I know I don't need to eat like that right now and I refuse to let all my hard work go to waste. I haven't talked too much about weight loss in my blog because that's not what it was really about but as long as the road to the NYC marathon was for me, as has been the road to being healthy. So I'm going back to a higher protein diet which has served me well and cutting back on simple sugars. The holidays are coming. I've already had 3 gingerbread lattes from $tarbuck$ -- those are calories I really don't need right now.

Since I'm sick anyway, I've done a little knitting while I'm lying around on the couch. It's the same scarf I started the weekend I had my gallbladder out and that seems like an eternity ago. It's almost done. I've also picked up A Race Like No Other again and I'm loving every word, just as I thought I would. I'm glad I stopped reading it and waited until after the race.