The aftermath - taking stock of a 'bad' month

The post-November analysis is continuing, though I am feeling a little stuck and frustrated until the after effects of the flu and its companion ear infection have passed. I have been out of exercise mode now for what must be six weeks between work and being ill, and boy oh boy does it show (I am the heaviest I have been for around a year).

I am still a rattling pill pot thanks to the various prescribed drugs for the infection, and it is hard to think about much else when the side of your head is throbbing. It is true that I have a low tolerance for pain and that there are far worse things to be suffering from (I am all to well aware of that), but it is perhaps the timing that is magnifying the apparent pain.

The certainty is that I need to get going as soon as I am well again, and get into a serious training plan... and I suppose there is no time like the present to start putting one together - especially as I have 41 weeks until my first major city marathon!

A month out - mostly on my ass

Over a month of non-blogging and I feel bad. It is not just that I haven't blogged for a month it is that I don't seem to have done much else for a month. Part way through Mo'vember with moustache doing well (a whole other story), work going well, and not much running or training happening I came down with a heavy dose of influenza. Sadly this was not the man-flu variety but the full on stuck in your bed feeling dizzy, weak, gripped by fever, tired and utterly rotten. It took a full week of what amounted to bed rest to feel more like myself, I have only ever had one experience of the flu worse than this once almost 20 years ago!

Happily a recovery began to appear after the week of resting, but then unhappily I came down with secondary ear infections (yeap, plural not singular). A trip to the doctors and then a mountain of pills collected from the pharmacy and again I'm sitting around feeling right royally sorry for myself. I have the itch to exercise - more than an itch it is a raging desire - I really need to get moving and get that buzz! Until the pain abates in the sides of my head I will be hitting the road because I just need to.

My targets haven't gone away but just now they seem an awfully long way away... all I want for Christmas is good health so I can train well.