Sickness and Sirens

This dry-lipped, lung-chunks-coughing, pale, pathetic little creature is a far cry from the superwoman who ran almost 60 km a few days ago. The woman who had strength left to ”sprint” the last few minutes of the race is now a ghost, wandering through the flat wailing and rattling her throat lozenge bottle. A rotting zombie, only instead of brains I'm moaning for peppermint tea.

Still, today I'm feeling better. And by better I mean that my extraordinary snot production (one might call it...ULTRA snot production. My new-found status as an ultra runner has many perks) is slowly grinding to a halt. Yesterday I wasted a Brazilian rainforest in tissues, today I think I might get by with only a recycled toilet paper roll from Willys. But my throat is a mess. Obviously envious of all the attention I showed my nose yesterday, it decided to step forward and remind me that it was, in fact, it that it all started with. My voice is a deep baritone. So I'm trying to think positive here and decide how to put this to good use. Prank call my friends? Take up opera singing? Mess with my mum and tell her I started smoking? Get a new career answering telephone calls from lonely-- 

On second thought, never mind.

Luckily, the flu came at a fortunate time, during a period when I would have been resting and recuperating from the race anyway. I had a thought after the race to take a couple of weeks off from running and do other things instead (climbing, cycling, swimming), to give my body a chance to heal (read: mainly my knee). Although it is kind of frustrating that any ache from the race was miraculously already gone by Monday, and that the spring weather we're having in Gothenburg right now is doing its best to lure me outside the flat, I know that my knee is not 100%. So it's just as well that I'm sick. It saves me getting tempted to turn a blind eye to the elephant in the room and go running anyway.

However long this rest period might turn out to be, a small exception is planned for this Saturday (my health permitting), when I'm booked on a running technique follow-up course with Markus Stålbom. Markus helped a lot last year when I started transitioning to minimalistic footwear and better running style, but then I went and neglected to keep working on it. Millions of different injuries ensued. So now it's time to take another long, hard look at how I run and correct my mistakes. Let's hope I'm well enough to participate.