Good News and Bad News

Well, I think I'll start with the good news... I always like good news! I found out yesterday that I will have a news sponsor for the 2010 run/ tri season: Marathon Bar. I am really excited to be a part of the Marathon Bar team. It is going to be an awesome program. The team includes athletes, known as "hometown heroes" from all over the country, who recruitment officers believed embodied the qualities they feel are synonymous with the brand: true passion for sport and community, and a general zest for life. I am honored to have been chosen, and looking forward to see what I can do for the team in the upcoming season. Triathlon #1 is right around the corner... next weekend!

But, on that note... time for the bad news. Shortly after I got back from B2B last week, I started to feel like I was getting run down. Okay, so maybe I had some preliminary signs a few days before to B2B, but chose to ignore them... classic mistake! After getting in the pool for the first time this year (the seed has been planted -- I am excited to swim again) and having a great workout, I went to the gym for some leg strength in the afternoon. I was feeling just fine. But by the time the evening rolled around, it was clear that I was most definitely sick.

Things got progressively worse by the day, and here I am a full eight days later FINALLY starting to feel better. But, this is after EIGHT days off (probably the most I have ever had to take due to anything other than choosing a rest period), several sleepless nights of excessive coughing and many struggling work days trying to do reporting with virtually no voice.

While I still had to go to work, I did the best I could to listen to my body and give it rest. This is probably the worst and most painful case of a sore throat I have ever had, and it really wore me down, more than I could have imagined. As silly as it sounds, I am proud of myself for taking the necessary time off to let my body recover (this has always been much harder for me than it should be), and am hoping this will pay off. As crucial as rest and recovery are, it is easy to overlook them when you're trying to focus on training hard and getting in shape.

But this time, I made sure to do the right thing, and I really hope to reap the benefits. But I know I still need to be careful. I plan to get back into things slowly with an EASY, short run today and see where I can go from there. I hope to be able to compete in my first triathlon of the season next weekend, so I certainly don't want to push it before I'm ready. We'll see how it goes this evening...