I’ve been battling some weird illness for the past week or so and it has been getting in the way of my training for the Paris Marathon, which is now only about six weeks away. I thought I had come up with my own weird disease until I started talking to folks and realized it’s a thing that’s going around. It started with post nasal drip and then my throat got sore. Then came the cough. The constant unending cough that got worse when I laid down. And all that coughing gave me a headache. Blech! Yesterday was the first morning in a week and a half that I woke up without a sore throat. I was really relieved because as time passed I could feel the clock ticking down on my training time.

Which leads me to the whole training issue. I’m feeling the usual uneasiness and pressure as the marathon approaches, the feeling that the distance is a real challenge and there’s no way I’ll be ready and can finish. Luckily I’ve done enough marathons to know that I have often felt this way and I will be able to complete the distance. But I am also aware that I am tired of feeling that pressure. it’s not as much fun as it is WORK. I’ve been running for over 30 years and while I still love running, after 13 miles it just starts to get boring (and this has pretty much always been true for me). So both Chuck and I have been thinking that this will be our last marathon. Training right for 26 miles means getting in long runs that take up most of your day, and we are both at the point in our lives where we like to do other things. Half marathons and 10K’s look really attractive to us now, challenging distances that don’t totally kick our asses. There’s also the breakdown issue: as in we don’t want to break down. We’re born into this life with one set of knees. And one of my goals is to leave this life with the same knees I came into it with.

Gotta go hoick up some phlegm now.