IL FUME...

I have a client who is so pro-smoking I have long given up any futile attempts at 'encouraging' him to quit. My words not only fall on deaf ears, but seem to provoke a pavlovian response that makes him want to light up immediately. Once we were running past a riverside pub on a wintry day when he noticed it had those outdoor heaters. With no hint of irony he turned to me and announced 'I must come back here and smoke'! You know who you are...!!

Photo: Tony Linck
Runner smoking cigarette while running marathon. Montreal, Canada 1949

HERB AND PERCY...

Herbert ("Herb") James Elliott AC MBE (born 25 February 1938) is a former Australian athlete, one of the world's greatest middle distance runners. He never lost a race over 1500 metres or the mile, and during his career he broke the four-minute mile on 17 occasions.
At the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, Herb Elliott won the 1500 metres race by the largest margin that had been recorded in Olympic history.
Elliott credited his visionary and iconoclastic coach, Percy Cerutty, with inspiration to train harder and more naturally than anyone of his era. Cerutty was known to avoid the track, talk about role models outside athletics (like Da Vinci and Jesus!), and bring his athletes to the unspoiled seaside beauty of Portsea training camp south of Melbourne, where Elliott would sprint up sand dunes until he dropped. "Faster," said Cerutty, "it's only pain."
In 1938 Cerutty was 43, a Melbourne postal worker with a 60-a-day cigarette habit on the verge of a physical and mental breakdown. Bedridden after a collapse and given six months to live, Cerutty set out on what would become a quest for physical and mental perfection. He eschewed cooked food, and began reading philosophy and history. He exercised relentlessly, and by 1940 he was the Victorian marathon champion with a respectable personal best of two hours and 52 minutes.

NOT TODAY...

I've had a niggly cold for a couple of weeks now, one of those low-lying insidious ones that make you feel generally under-par and like crawling into a hole until all is better again. I thought it was on the way out, then yesterday morning I got a throbbing headache and started feeling a bit dizzy - the tube ride back from Stockwell was enough to tip me over the edge and I took to my bed for the rest of the afternoon.
Which brings me to the point of this post and the question 'should I run when I'm sick?'
Most runners' main concern is that they'll lose performance by having a few days off.
No, you won't. It takes an extended period of time for you to see a drop in your fitness, usually two to three weeks. In my experience, many runners are on the verge of over-training anyway, and a few duvet days may provide a well-deserved physical and mental break.
I tend to follow a few simple rules - if you’re sick from the neck up (cold, sore throat,) then you can probably still run. If you’re sick from the neck down (body aches, chesty coughs, fever,) then you absolutely should not run. Your immune system is working hard to get you well, and a workout will delay your recovery.
In particular, you should never run with a fever. The risk of damage to your heart is a real issue with possible life-long consequences.
Listen to your body on this one and begin again when you feel 80-90% back at your normal energy level.
Today my head aches and I have a chesty cough and it's raining outside. Bring on the duvet, tea on tap and M&S yum yums! (And Tomo, would you be a love and bring me The Wire Season 3 pleeease!)

BEGINNING AGAIN...

I'm finding it unusually hard to kick-start my running. Saturday came and went, along with a succession of lame excuses, and Sunday was a complete non-starter for no other reason than it was cold - but really cold. (Is it my imagination or is this winter far, far colder and gloomier than last? This time last year I was merrily pounding the streets in training for the Bath half-marathon, today I'm struggling to drag myself out the door).
I think I must be in the 'contemplation' phase, certain that 'action' is just around the corner!
Like the girl in the picture, I'm having a rest. I need to be psychologically prepared as well as physically.
Or maybe I should just man up and get out there.

Runner Gunhild Larking relaxing at the Melbourne Olympics 1956
Photographer: George Silk