A raised heart rate in the morning, normally up by six beats per minute or so, indicates that you’ve got a virus. Exercising hard in such circumstances isn’t advisable.

Today’s cold virus gave me no such warning. That might be because I skipped a meal on Sunday and was outdoors a lot.  I was helping with my son’s seventh birthday party: an ambitious tobogganing event at a dry ski slope, with 20 very excited little friends.  Lunch was laid on for the kids, but my wife and I somehow forgot about ours, so we didn’t sit down to eat till 4pm in the afternoon.  That was on top of my scheduled long run too.  Some nutritionists  say that the immune system starts to become compromised if the body is not fed every four hours. 

Guess this was over-egging it just a bit. I’d forgotten how much impact the long run can have; you really feel the body going through the recovery process. They say vigorous high-impact exercise draws white blood cells to the areas in need of repair: that is, away from the upper respiratory tract, so leaving it vulnerable to infection.  And heaven knows if anyone has bothered to measure what stress a child’s birthday party exerts on the parental immune system.  By the time I’d driven half a dozen guests home, and gone back to retrieve various lost coats and bags, I definitely felt a bit older.

Anyway, I hope this cold does not last long, because the marathon training programme is only just on target, and I really want to run better and faster than in 2005. There is a lot of ground to make up in three months with only a little margin for the occasional setback.

At this stage I don’t think it’s flu, although I have some muscle ache, which I attributed to the long run. I’m certainly not inclined to exercise, even lightly…

Resting heart rate 51

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Related Posts

1. bertie wooster, paula radcliffe and cold showers
2. slow road to recovery
3. slowing down is hard to do
4. listen to your heart
5. knackered hack gone viral, again