There will be Blood

This isnt the way I wanted to go into my first week of marathon training. I havent run a single mile this week, for a variety of reasons. Early in the week, I could feel a cold coming on, so I bagged the running and figured I should rest up before a sniffle turns in the swine flue. Wednesday I was just plain lazy. I got up at 4:45, got all of my outdoor running shit on, and then promptly sat on my couch and surfed the internet.  And yesterday I was traveling for 16 hours – Philly to Chicago and back. Today, I am just tired. And there’s another limiting factor to throw on top of all that: my nose has been bleeding incessantly

I broke my nose pretty bad when I was a tyke – no , I was beaten. I took a spill into my grandmother’s marble coffee table, head first. The coffee table came out on top of that one. Anyway, it was so bad that I had to get my nose cauterized once or twice when I was young because I suffered from constant nose bleeds. Now, the problem isnt anywhere near as bad, but I still get the nosebleeds about twice a year. I get them in the spring occasionally, but I really get hit hard in the fall. Its mostly a function of the dry air – it must shrink my blood vessels or something. I took some dingers in karate over the years that certainly havent helped the situation either. I had a few bleeds in the beginning of the week and they werent terrible, but Wednesday and yesterday, my nose was a like a geyser. Oi. Flying didnt help.The air in the plane cabin is extremely dry, and on the return trip back to Philly, I could feel the pressure change as we descended all up in my sinuses. I must have hard three bleeds over the course of the day, yesterday. I had one last night, and another bad one this morning that I couldnt stop.

So, running wasnt in my best interest in the last couple of days. The last thing I wanted was a stream of blood to start gushing out of my nose while I am on the treadmill.

My goal is to hit the treadmill tomorrow and do a couple of good solida miles. Ultimately, I would like to get outside, but I think the weather is going to be a crappy mix of snow then rain then snow then rain throughout most of the day. I’ll probably be driven inside. I need to start getting outside to get acclimated to the cold. Sunday, I am trying to line up a mountain bike ride with the fellas, because it looks like most of my time is going to be consumed by running for the foreseeable future.