Deja vu all over again

I woke up at 5am this morning so I could get to the gym and get my scheduled 11k interval run in before work. To my surprise the cold I thought I had cleverly eluded by taking Cold FX had returned. My throat was sore, sinuses congested and my muscles ached. I felt like rolling over and going back to sleep, not  running.

To top things off, it had snowed over night, was still snowing and, as I would find out later while I was cleaning the snow off my car, the wind was strong and bitterly cold! Anyway, I slowly rolled out of bed, popped some more Cold FX, two Tylenol, got dressed and off I went.

The roads were brutal. I was thankful for having snow tires, as I watched others slipping and sliding on the slick, snow covered streets.

By the time I arrived at the gym my energy level seemed to be rising, my throat wasn't as sore and I was able to once again breathe. Perhaps as I predicted in a previous post (Monday, Monday on December 13) this run would be a breeze!

To remind you, I had already done this run last Tuesday when I should have been running only 10k with slower paces - see Maybe I Need Glasses! posted on December 8th.

Anyway the run started fine and I felt good, getting into a rhythm over the first couple of kilometres as I ran at a 5:15 per k clip. Then things got tough.

I'm not sure if it was the effects of the cold or just the blistering pace Ian had set for me, but my lungs started to burn at the 5.5k mark, just as I started the second interval of 2.5k at a 4:05 per minute pace. I took a deep breath, focused on fast feet, relaxed shoulders and pressed on.

I really thought this time around the run would be somewhat easier than the previous Tuesday, but it wasn't. It was just plain tough and felt pretty much as it had the last time. Maybe it was supposed to be or maybe it was because my body was still fighting a cold.

Whatever the reason, I figured fighting through pain and getting in two of these runs would serve me well in my half marathon in a few weeks. It would also make the remainder of my runs this week seem easy...at least that's what I'm hoping!