Sick or Allergies?

I've been feeling crappy the last 4-5 days.  I even took 2 full days off from running...but it didn't help.  I still feel tired, lethargic, and "not quite right" in the head and lungs.  Friends might say I'm never quite right in the head...but I'm talking about being sort of stuffed up and congested.  Not a full-blown cold...just "not quite right."  I took an Alavert this morning and will continue to do so the rest of this week.  If it's allergies that are bugging me, I should feel better after a day or two.  If it's something more, then I'll probably have full symptoms in a day or two.  Or maybe my body will fight it off and I'll be fine by mid-week.  I skipped the 5-hour trail run with the Kennekuk Road Runners this past weekend...and that was a good choice.  That tough Clear Pond trail would have killed me!  I'm planning on consistent, easy runs this whole week.  Nothing too long, nothing too fast.  I did 3 miles on the treadmill this morning...and I felt rather lousy.  Hope the allergy medication helps.  I'd like to get in a few long runs in the next 4-6 weeks.  Howl at the Moon 8-Hour race is less than 7 weeks away.  Easy 5 mile runs aren't going to get me ready to run for 8 hours in the summer heat and humidity! 

Numbers Don't Lie

Numbers don't lie.
People lie.
People also use numbers to deceive.

I'm tracking lots of running numbers now that I have my new Garmin GPS watch with heart rate monitor. It's neat having time, distance, elevation, heart rate, and pace/speed all automatically tracked, stored and easily loaded to the computer.  Did you know my heart rate goes up when elevation goes up?  And my pace goes down at the same time!  Pretty insightful, eh?  I need more data before I get any useful information that might guide my training.  The best part of the new watch is that it does all of this stuff automatically...and downloads to my computer right when I connect the USB cable...then uploads to several web sites with one click of a button.  It's quite a change going from logging nothing to logging everything...but it takes almost no extra time thanks to the watch interface with the computer.

While I track all of these numbers, hopefully I won't lie...to myself, fellow runners, or my blog readers.  It was interesting to see my numbers from yesterday's run.  I felt kinda crappy.  After loading my run data, it turns out my heart rate was higher than normal and my pace was slower than usual.  That's a bad combination...especially when the weather was OK (cool morning).  Something was definitely going on to cause these poor numbers.  I was probably tired from a trip to Chicago on Tuesday--lots of driving, poor eating, and I didn't drink enough fluids.  I skipped running on Tuesday, yet still felt tired and dehydrated on Wednesday...and it showed in how I felt and what numbers were on my watch.  I suppose that's some validation for heart rate training.  With more consistent data, I should start to see useable trends.  How many hard days per week can I tolerate?  How hard can those days be?  Do I tolerate tempo runs better than interval workouts?  How many easy miles can I run before becoming truly fatigued?  What happens when I take a day completely off?  These are all good training questions...but I need data to answer them honestly.  Numbers don't lie.

Dailymile Web Running Site

I've been on dailymile for less than a week, but I like it quite a bit!  It's a free web site for tracking your running (and cycling, walking, hiking, weight lifting, etc).  In addition to very easy run logging features, you also have the ability to upload Nike+, Garmin, and iPhone or Android running data with one click.  And it has a social element that allows you to find running "friends" and form "groups" that you can then follow and compare yourself to on various weekly statistics (total miles run, longest run, comments, motivations, etc).  It's a nice site to log your runs and then compare yourself to others (across the full site or among your friends)--great way to motivate yourself and maybe inspire others. 

Any of you blog readers on dailymile?  If so, find me and friend me! My dailymile account:

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Chris71/

For those that want nothing to do with dailymile, you can still follow my training on this blog since I added the dailymile widget that automatically posts my most recent run to this blog on the sidebar.  Yeah, I realize that following my training isn't exactly the highlight of your day, but it actually helps ME run more often, farther, and faster.  It's that public accountability thing.  Also, dailymile makes it incredibly easy to post your workout to Facebook or Twitter.

Since I'm so new to dailymile, if you have advice on how to use it, please let me know.  Thanks.