Running and coughing and slipping and freezing

Oh yes, it's January again

Today's run (street & treadmill): 3 miles total

Whatever cold or virus that hit me on December 29 is still with me. The only remaining symptom is a dry cough that just won't abate. I took a rare sick day on Tuesday, worked from home on Wednesday and returned to the office on Thursday. My coughing was so relentless that my boss, whose office is adjacent to mine, told me to work from home on Friday. She couldn't stand the thought of another day listening to my hacking.

The good news is that I feel almost back to full strength. I considered going for a run on Friday morning, but ended up doing a brisk (4 MPH) treadmill walk instead. This morning's weather was a lot colder, but I was determined to get out and run. 23° with winds dropping the real feel temperature into the teens meant a lot of layers head to foot. I did my best to prepare, but I ultimately found conditions too harsh.

I was fairly comfortable while I waited for the Garmin to acquire its signal. I started off optimistically, planning to only run fast enough to stay warm. When I took my first left off my street, I felt the wind on my face and it hurt. I decided to give it a few minutes, hoping that warming up would help minimize my discomfort. I thought I could tough it out for three miles and probably could have managed that. After completing a loop through the middle school, I saw that the lightly falling snow was becoming heavier and the ground was getting slippery.

That was enough for me. I made tracks (literally) back to my house and headed upstairs where my wife was just finishing up her treadmill workout. I quickly shed my heavy layers and hopped on the treadmill. I completed the balance of my run indoors and ended up getting in trouble for tracking dirt in the house because I'd forgotten to take off my running shoes.

I usually try to cover closer to five miles on weekend days, but the combination of not running for two weeks and feeling less than 100% made three miles seem like a good distance. Besides that, we're in the middle of our first snowstorm of the season. I knew I'd be going out at least four times to shovel as we're looking at 9"- 12" at this point. Between the running and shoveling, I've already covered more than 10K steps today. That number will go up further when we go back out again at 7:00.

I was glad to get back on the road this morning for the first time since Boxing Day. Unfortunately , it was for barely more than half a mile. Looks like another fun session on the treadmill tomorrow.