Fortnight of frustration

A cold I contracted on Sat 17th has proven a real nuisance. Whilst, I was was over the worst of the cold within 48 hours and missed only one day of work, I have yet to regain full strength. That week, I ripped into a can of "Harden Up" and slogged my way through 78k's of low intensity training, skipping both speedwork sessions. Wednesday, I was dropped by the Group after just 20 minutes and on Sunday I was only just able to keep contact with the Group for the first ninety minutes before finishing reasonably well.

This week, I attempted a return to speedwork on Tuesday when we did 8 x 1 mins in the Gardens. Right from the start, I was sluggish and off the pace - it felt like each of my legs had been injected with three litres of water that was weighing them down. I was breathing ok but had no strength and watched as Nic, Andy and Glenda raced away from me. Any thoughts that I was imagining things were disproved when I was only capable of doing half of my normal pushups back at the Ship Inn.

Wednesday, I held on for a little longer before being dropped by Glenda after 32 minutes and the rest of the week I just ran low intensity mileage recording 79k's for the week and skipping speedwork on Friday. Most of the runs the last fortnight, I didn't want to be running at all, which is unusual for me but I thought of my goals and laced up the Brooks anyway.

As I type, there has been no improvement in my strength and I will not be running the time trial or speedwork this week. It'll be another week of 8-10 hour sleeps, scoffing vitamins and OJ, avoiding alcohol and minimising dairy. I'm pretty sure that continuing to train at low intensity is not delaying my recovery and I'll just have to wait until the tide turns. I'm too scared to take a break and lose fitness anyway.