This morning I took my coughing and spluttering self off to the Doctors Surgery for an Asthma review. I considered cancelling it because of my cold, but having seen no improvement in the few weeks before lurgy hit I wanted to make sure all the bases were covered. On arrival she got the peak flow meter out, I obligingly did a few big puffs into it and said “that doesn’t look too bad considering I have a cold” and the nurse gave me a stern and worried look and said “it’s dropped a lot”.
So that was a good start. The upshot of the appointment was that I am now on a long acting reliever inhaler in the hope that it will kick these breathing issues into touch once and for all.
In a fit of New Year introspection I went back and looked through my Janathon 2013 posts, and honestly it really bought home with a bump just how much fitness I have lost over 2014. I was astonished to see my average pace for Janathon 2013 was about 9’30” miles, and that included some times when I was running on sheet ice! Throughout the whole of 2013 my average pace was around the 10 minute mile mark, only dropping a bit lower when I started Half Marathon training. Then 2014 started with *that* cold and chest infection and blah, blah, blah all my other hideous woes that I won’t bore you with again and I’ve barely broken the 10’30” mile since.
So peak flow or no peak flow I decided to head out today and run around the block as fast as I could to see how I was doing in comparison.
That photo was taken post run, and to be honest I think the light must be very flattering today because I look A LOT better than I felt.
I just managed to avoid coughing up a lung as I shot round the 1.5 miles, but to be honest I’m not sure if you’d find anyone who’d recommend attempting to do a speed trial while you have a cough. Still, at least my shoe laces stayed done up.
The end result was 1.5 miles in pretty much bang on 15 minutes. Better than I expected but still about 30-45 seconds a mile slower than I was doing that route in 2013. I’m not going to pretend it felt in the slightest bit easy, but I do have a cold, so there we go, lets see if I can improve that at all this month shall we?
Currently I am refuelling with Celebrations and a glass of coconut milk, because it’s important to refuel after a full 15 minutes of exercise.
Tonight I will be eating garlic sausage that I bought for 5p on the reduced shelf in Tesco. I live a heady and exciting life.
Just 29 more of these to go.
