Wednesday saw my second run since illness and this time I did take it easy. I don't want to end up back on the sicklist so I will also be taking it easy on my long run this week keeping it at the half marathon distance and taking a couple of weeks to get back where I was with the 20 milers. Despite taking it easy on Wednesday I still managed to get around the 11 kilometers in 8 min 11 mile pace so it was still reasonably quick. I can only assume that it was my legs were still feeling fresh from the break. It will therefore be interesting to see how much easier it will be able to run after a two week taper in April. After some of my runs I have been thinking I don't know how I will be able to keep this pace up for the full distance but after this recent enforced taper I am starting to think maybe I can. Even illness can have a silver lining.

Im back in the saddle again. It seems like ages, I had only expected to be off the road for a couple of days, in the end it was a whole nine. I expect I have been pushing myself a little too hard in my training combined with my job and my wifes cold it was enough to push me over the edge. My wages are a combination of a basic wage and a piece work style bonus. Being the way I am I tend to push for the higher pay, it can make the difference of an extra 2 pounds an hour which soon adds up. With the carrot of a house dangling in front of my eyes slowing down doesn't seem like the right choice to make. I think I probably ended up burning myself out.

So today was my first run since the bugs struck. It was also the first run in my new shoes that are now being broken in for the big day. In my absence the ice has more or less all gone and we are back to running on dry tarmac which is wonderful. Well at the moment it is gravel that was used as grit on dry tarmac, but the point is that it is no longer slippery. I had promised myself that I would take it easy and ease back into things. I kept to my promise for the first half of the route. By half distance I realised I was making good time even though I didn't feel like I was overly trying. I managed to hold back until the last quarter but that I couldn't help but push on. In the end I ran my 10.73km route, yes I know its an odd distance but that do you suggest I move our apartment or the lake?, in a time of 49.29 which is 4.37 per km or 7.25 per mile.

I am going to have to watch myself otherwise I can see myself over doing it again, but its good to be back.

What the difference a few days make. If I had written a entry in the middle of the week I would have reported how happy I was with the way my training was coming along. My mileage was heading back towards where it should be, around the 50 miles a week plus area and as an added bonus my times were starting to see an improvement as well. The midweek medium/long run was starting to develop, this week was 10 miles in the next month or so I hope to build this up to half marathon distance. My training was leaving me tired but it was a happy kind of tired with the knowledge that everything was coming together.

So what has changed? The dreaded lurgy has attacked. I awoke this morning with a sore throat and a blocked up nose. Being ill is not something that I do that well, I get too restless to be able to just take it easy and let my body recover. Then I will start thinking have I pushed myself too hard over the last week or so, I have increased the pace after all, and therefore brought the cold upon myself? Maybe, but its more likely because my wife has had a cold all week, I live in a country were minus temperatures are the norm and instead of a nice cosy office I work in a constant 4 degrees warehouse.

So I just have to accept it. I will probably end up loading myself full of fruit this week and multi vitamin drinks to try and help the bugs on there way. I will try and keep the routine up in the coming months as well to try and keep on the right side of the healthy/ill line. If I can keep it up who knows, until recently fruit and myself were usual companions, but it has to be better than being ill.

In reality I guess its not that bad, all going well I should be shot of the sniffes in a few days. I will miss a long run, I had planned my second 20 miler this weekend, but I am ahead of schedule for this marathon so its bearable. It could have been worse a cold is much better than a injury. So no more feeling sorry for myself, I will be back out there running soon and on the right side at least it meant I had the time to blog!

A slightly lower mileage but at a faster pace this week. Good to get back into the swing of things after our hoilday but next week it back to buisness once again and proper training will resume.

Day	Distance	Time / pace info	Comment
Monday	Rest Day		Cross training - Well a day of shopping anyway
Tuesday	Rest Day		Travel day - Returning to Sweden with a 3am start meant I was too tired to run once we had arrived back home
Wednesday	10.9 km	53.07 - 4:52 per km	Pushing the pace a little - probably the guilt from not having run for a while.
Thursday	10.9	1:02.39 - 5:45 per km	Easy day, much slower regreting the day befores pace
Friday	Rest Day	59:26 - 5:27 per Km
Saturday	10.91 km	50:55 - 4:40 per Km	Much faster than my regular runs - I think having the mp3 player on resulted in me running a faster pace to match the beat, or it might have been the return of snow meant i felt safer running than on ice. I was trying to push the pace again but i didnt think i was pushing as much as it turned out.
Sunday	21.4 kms	1.46:36 - 4:58 per km	More of a medium sized run this week than a long one. Felt good and didnt noticed the legs being tired from the day before which was good.
Weekly Total	54.2 kms	This Years total Kms: - 161

You may have noticed that my blogging has been slightly limited this week. That could either mean one of two things. I might be out running so much that I have little time left over to actually write about it. Or I could be feeling too drained, not doing that much running and therefore feel too guilty to show my face on here. Sadly the truth is the second choice.

After being able to sleep in last week while back in England you would have thought I would be back refreshed and ready to attack my training again. I probably would have been expect for having to get up at 3am for the flight back to Sweden. A sensible person would have gone to bed in good time but am I a sensible person? Gess I am training for a marathon in a Swedish winter so we can scrub logical from my list of personality traits.

I have managed a couple of runs, both on my 10.9km course. A tempo run of just over 53 minutes on Wednesday and then a recovery run the day after 10 minutes slower with my legs regretting the tempo run. So not much to write home about this week but then there are still two days left to make amends, a weekend free from work and a fresh start next week where I can hopefully get myself back on track.