Ceryx guttulosa

Ceryx guttulosa
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

For the first time in ages I slept without the aircon on, partly because the temp had dropped a little and partly because my throat was feeling like it had been assaulted with red-hot sandpaper. When I start to get a cold I can go downhill pretty quickly. I don't seem to get mild colds; either I'm well or I am wiped out. When I'm wiped I find walking up a small hill like climbing Everest. I tend to throw everything I can at a cold to try and stop it from getting a hold, or at least keeping it off my chest. As soon as I got home from work yesterday I threw down a Lemsip max. Sal had made shepherds pie, and I threw a load of that down too, before finishing off a large chunk of cheesecake. There is an old saying "feed a cold, starve a fever" which just has to be nonsense. If you're fighting something you need to keep your strength up, so get stuck into your food. I am, of course, an expert.

I went to bed about 4hours later, so had another Lemsip max and got some Vicks First Defense up a nose that had been running like a tap all evening. As luck would have it, or because that's the way the body works, my nose stopped running when I fell asleep and I had an OK nights sleep, better than Sal who slept badly and made the mistake of leaving the bedroom door open last night, finding herself AJed at silly o clock. I did the decent thing and pretended I was still asleep, getting a little rest if no more sleep. At about 6am AJ had worn Sal down, they got up and headed out for a coffee. Throat on fire and nose blocked I dragged my arse up off the floor and we all went out for breakfast.

And so to the running. Going into Janathon I was planning to average 10km a day and clock up 310km for the month. It soon became apparent that this would not get me anywhere near the pointy end of the ladder, which I guess I had set my sights upon. As the days passed and I realised I could clock more than I thought I was capable of my target moved from 10km to 10miles per day. So with three days left I needed to knock out 25km. Easy enough without a cold, but what about with it? Sal suggested I take it easy today but I thought that was a risky strategy. My thought process went a bit like this.

The cold is still above the neck and therefore my breathing is not compromised. Feeling like shit cannot make your muscles weaker; your mind can make you think you're weaker, but you just have to put that aside. So, the best course of action for me today was to knock out as many of my remaining miles as I could.

I had to go into work and be there at about 10:45. I had hoped to leave at around 08:30 but lost a bit of time to having a row with Sal and teaching AJ how to identify a tiger moth. I left a little after 09:00 with the plan being to run to the city and then sort of run around it for as long as I could. Curiously enough I enjoyed myself and I think it was because I was feeling ordinary; it added a new, if unwanted, dimension to a run that was in effect simply grinding out miles over roads I have run many times before. I got to the bridge in about average time, so I was not slower than usual. I plodded the bridge and then decided to loop around the city without crossing tracks. It was a grind; the legs were simply turning over and the biggest challenge was trying to second guess the movements of the bus loads of tourists around Farm Cove. The only clue I had was that they would definitely not be moving in the direction they were looking. In the end I added a few little bits here and there and clicked over 20km, leaving myself 5 for tomorrow and Monday. If I'd had a little more time I probably would have knocked the lot out so that tomorrow I could run to the end of the garden and on Monday run to the pub.

I can hear a fat lady warming her vocal chords.