Sunday's Long Run: Powered by Cipro

After nearly two weeks of sore throats, blowing, sneezing, massive chest congestion and to top that off, conjunctivitis (pink eye), last Friday I decided a trip to the doctor was in order.

I pretty much always "run through" colds. I feel that it helps me both physically and mentally and that it helps move some of the "stuff" through my system.  Usually the cold goes away in a few days. This one I thought went away on October 14th. But on the 15th, I found out otherwise.

The biggest wild card in my training over the last 5 years has been injuries and illnesses. I blame my kids for both, but I still love them! Comes with the territory. It wasn't my 5 year old's fault that some other kid in his preschool class came to school with pink eye!

So two weeks of misery and I'm off to the doctor on the 22nd, figuring he'd give me a 5 day Z-Pack antibiotic to beat this thing. He looked and listened and told me I had bronchitis and a sinus infection. Ycchh! My head WAS hurting. So he put me on 1000 mg of Ciprofloxacin a day for 7 days.

My fear with antibiotics based on previous experience is that they tear up my gut and give me heartburn. And that does bad things for my training, which already went down the tubes for weeks 5 and 4 prior to my marathon.

In the meantime, I spoke with my friend Dave, who said for me to get a "decent" performance at the Malibu Marathon on November 14th, I really needed 1 more long run, since my last one was 2 weeks ago. I'm thinking the chances of that were quite slim given how I felt. But between that discussion and my catching this awesome Will Smith motivational video on Saturday, I was determined to run 18 to 20 miles on Sunday come hell or high water.

My body was dragging and I got to bed too late on Saturday night, so I didn't wake up until 8 am on Sunday. But I reminded myself, you're on drugs getting over bronchitis, dude. Don't kill yourself.

So by 8:20 am I was out the door. I didn't take my morning Cipro. Jeez, I was reading the label and it said it could cause inflammation and tearing of a tendon...doh!!...and here I am running 2 1/2 hours. Ughh. Coughing and spitting every 20 yards or so, I left my mark on Newbury Park. At least it would allow me to retrace my steps should I get lost.  In fact, the coughing got so bad at times, I thought I was going to lose a lung.

But after awhile, things settled down. I didn't concern myself with pace and told myself I would just slog this out. I drank fluids and took in my "GU" packs and steadily moved along. By 11 am I had run a loop around Newbury Park, later determining my run was about 19 miles in 2 hours, 40 minutes. That was about an 8:25 average pace, as slow as I've ever run, but I DID IT! I celebrated at the pumpkin patch later that day with my kids.

So it is now Wednesday night, October 27th. I have one day of Cipro left. Still coughing but not nearly as much. Seems like everyone I meet these days has this same cough.

With 2 1/2 weeks left, all I can do is stay fit, maybe do 12 to 15 this weekend, then ride in the taper to marathon day.

And stay healthy!