WW- Side Effects of Illness

I am beat. Everything is moving slower than normal. I did some tallying of the last week's events to try and pinpoint the reason. Here's the results from Thanksgiving week:

• 1700 miles driven
• 4 days with friends and family
• 4 pounds of additional calories
• Despite having run 19.8 miles during those 4 days
• 1 slab of ribs brought back home
• 5 days in a row of an unpleasant viral infection

This cold is really beating me up. It started with a tickle of a sore throat that got a little worse. The tickle became a hot spot. A hot spot became a furnace. Soon, it got to the point where I thought I could heat the entire house just by breathing. (Which, when you think about it, is kinda convenient since it's winter and I'm having furnace problems). Sadly, a quick check of the thermostat proved that I wasn't changing the enthalpy of the room by a significant amount.

The throat thing has finally changed in elevation and embedded itself firmly into my sinuses. Last night, I tried to go to bed early. As I laid there in my misery, I swore I could actually feel my medulla fire a nerve to my heart, then feel my heart beat in response, then feel my pulse rise and fall like the tide through my body at 58 times per minute (okay, so I was bored and got out my watch to time the process).

Now, I'm not one to let something like a head cold slow me down. Luckily, I'm not that fast anyway so you'd be hard pressed to notice a change in pace. Regardless of how I felt, that extra 4 pounds of delicious meat sitting firmly under my belly button is an ever present demon in need of an exORcising. Since those cost money, I decided on the traditional exERcising. I went running and it didn't go as well as I had hoped. Granted, I could have been delirious, but I'm pretty sure my Mizuno's transformed into these.

Here's where my multisport background is actually advantageous. I don't need to just run to workout. I have lots of other options and they're all legit when it comes to improving my fitness towards my goals (not that I have any at this time).

Instead of running, I could go for a bike ride. Granted, the weather is a little cooler than I prefer but I wasn't going to let that fact get in my way of a good ride. I hopped on my steed and readied myself for a jaunt through the country. Now, I don't remember my pedals being that hard to turn. I got off and checked the tire pressure because low air can cause increased rolling resistance. Nope. It's possible that my carbon fiber frame put on some sympathy weight during the holiday because this is how my bike felt.

Needless to say, I didn't get very far on that set-up. There is still one more weapon in the triathlete's utility belt. I normally don't swim in the winter time. I have a swimming strength as it pertains to the sport of triathlon. I can attempt to focus my winter training regimen on my weaknesses (meaning every other aspect of the race) and not be concerned about the water leg. Plus, I was pretty sure that dressing in speedos would eliminate the brick-like feeling.

I'm not sure what hallucinogen they replaced the chlorine with but it worked wonders on my senses. Sure, I didn't get in a good workout but I did see the world in nice blocks. Even the old people in the pool looked as fit and trim as me. In violation of most public pool rules, I brought my camera and asked the lifeguard to take a picture of a group set. Here we are:

 
P.S. You can actually watch Lego Phelps win gold here.

Editor's Note: I started typing this message on Tuesday of this week. It's not that wordy and I still missed my deadline. It's possibly because my keyboard now looks like this.

Hopefully I'll get better soon.