She's running the distance (halfway)

On Friday, when I had planned on running my long run, I caught a bug that's been going around. It's hard to tell if this is a summer cold or a flu like thing, but it stinks. I had body aches, stuffy nose, sore throat, headache, you name it I had it! I opted to not go for my run on Friday since I had the body aches. Typically, I've been told that so long as you don't have a fever you can go running, I just did not feel up to it or anything for that matter...well except for crochet class :)

So yesterday (Saturday) I worked a full day and then decided I had to try to go running. I had felt like poop all day, but kept taking medicine that seemed to be helping. The body aches had gone away, I was just dried out (thanks to the cold medicine). I brought a full fuel belt of water (since I was so dried out) and figured I'd give it a shot. If I didn't feel well within the first mile, I'd turn back...otherwise, I'd go for it.

Since I was running from work, I opted to go to the lakefront. There was a strong breeze out of the west so it didn't matter where I went on the lake. For Labor Day weekend the lakefront was empty...I guess 65-70 degrees will do that...happy for me, it made my run very enjoyable. I opted to go north on the lakefront, up past North Ave beach, Fullerton, and up to Diversey. Rather than turning around and running on the same path, I opted to go under the bridge at Diversey and run around the harbor. I really liked doing that...must run that again! I ran past the zoo (thought about running through it but there were still people mulling about so opted against that). Then on North. Again, I didn't want to run the same area twice yesterday, so I opted for Dearborn, Clark, and LaSalle back to Division rather than just running on Division. When I got to Wells I realized I was short about a block or two...so I went south on Wells and turned around before sprinting to Orleans.

I made it all 6 miles and I felt great.

While running my nose was clear, I was still dry but water helped. I felt at one with nature and just in a happy place. The weather was perfect, my attitude was right, my pace was slow but I was just enjoying myself out there.

So now I must officially sign up for the half marathon since I was able to run half the distance yesterday, that means I can totally run the whole thing. My brother once told me, if you can run half, the rest is just mental. Of course, he had told me that because we were training for a 16 mile race and he had only trained up to 8 before a minor injury...but he managed to make all 16 miles.

What did I learn from this?
When you are sick, you can totally go running...just be prepared that after feeling great again during the run, when you start to feel like poop afterwards it can be doubly hard, since you just felt great.