benched with the flu.

the flu came tearing through school. i made it through the first week of horrific-ness. we had 50+ kids out a day, along with 5+ staff. one day we had 12 staff out and 61 children. i was not sick once the whole 5 days. i thought i made it through. i bragged about making it through. sunday night i went to bed knowing i was in the clear. i made it through the week and the weekend, my immune system rocked. 

i woke up monday morning not feeling great. i felt an ache in my body. as the day went on, things got worse. by about 1:00 pm, i left the classroom and went to the nurse..in true 5th grade fashion. she took my temperature after i told her my symptoms. 100.1 degrees. all of my bragging came back to me and i wanted to slap myself. i totally jinxed it. she told me i better go home to rest. i left early, went home, and put on my pajamas. i had to ditch my plans of running 7 miles on the treadmill.  i lived off chicken noodle soup that my man so kindly made for me.

 

 the next day was torture. the day after that i felt a little better, but still horrible. the day after that i felt much better (in comparison), but still not able to get in any exercise.  the 4th day, i felt good enough to get back to work. i decided i would go to the gym after work and just try the elliptical. i had no dreams of running. i made it a half hour on the elliptical, but stopped there since i didn't want to over do it. the next day, i felt basically fine. i decided to give a run a shot. it was saturday so i was able to wake up slowly, have breakfast, and then relax before i headed out.

 

usually, i can run 3 miles in 21 minutes. my average pace for shorter runs (3-6 miles) is about 7 minutes. so this was slow for me. i had a 3 mile goal when i went to the gym, but i didn't expect it to take me that long. i was happy i fulfilled my goal, despite the pace. it was rough. 

 a couple days later, i was back to my normal pace running 4 or 5 miles. it took me about a week to get back up to 7. i get so antsy when i'm sick and can't exercise! 

 the flu was rough this year. as much as i wanted to get up and do something, i listened to my body and laid in bed watching gossip girls. i drank as much water as humanly possible and ate lots of chicken noodle soup. normally, on a day off i like to drink a mimosa or 3 and i even refrained from that. 

so happy to be back in the swing of things!