I don’t want to jinx myself. I dont want to jinx myself.
Let’s talk illnesses. I (knock on wood) have not been sick this summer...yet. But it seems like I’m the only person I know who hasn’t.
My wife and kid have been sick at least once or twice with something short-lived. Fortunately, I managed to dodge that both times, but it reminds me of a major downside to training for, and racing, marathons: You have little control over the outcome.
Even if you follow your training plan to a T, you could be sidelined on race day if the weather gods strike with a 90-degree day. Or, airline workers decide to strike when you have to fly cross-country. Or, germs decide to strike at an unseasonable time.
In recent years, I haven’t seriously trained for a fall marathon, so maybe I just didn’t notice that people actually do catch a cold when it’s 85 degrees and sunny outside. Is that a thing? Because, with all the people around me coughing and wheezing, I’m getting a fair bit rattled right now.
My colleague who sits in the office next to mine spent the entire month of July hawking up a lung or two. I think he still might be sick. I’m secretly happy when I arrive in the morning and see his door closed.
And just this week, another colleague was reeling from some icky, creepy thing. He came into my office to tell me about a broken pair of headphones he’d been testing and I—foolishly!—grabbed them to check out the trouble. Fortunately, I caught myself and headed straight for the soap dispenser when we got done talking. (Sorry, Chris, it’s not you; it’s your little bug friends!)
So, what’s a runner to do? Well, my approach thus far has been to feign ignorance and pray I don’t get sick. It’s worked for the time being, but maybe I should opt for something a little more rooted in science. Between now and race day, here’s what I’m planning to do:
1.) I’m washing my hands. A lot. I might even start carrying one of those little bottles of sanitizer or offer up fist-bumps instead of handshakes.
2.) I need to start getting more sleep. Six hours a night has typically been “enough.” Though I’m constantly walking around tired, which is probably ideal for a virus to take over. So, I’m going to try to turn in at least 30 minutes earlier every night. You have to start somewhere, right?
3) I should probably cut back on the amount of beer I drink. Earlier in the summer, I had ambitions to eliminate it entirely from my diet while training. (#SoberSummer seems a cute way to humblebrag.) But, as I told one co-worker recently, “I like IPAs more than I like PRs.” That said, I don’t have to give it up all together, but cutting back a bit certainly won’t hurt.
If all of that fails, you can find me in the break room shotgunning Emergen-C packets.
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Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner's World, guiding the brand's shoes and gear coverage. A true shoe dog, he's spent more than a decade testing and reviewing shoes. In 2017, he ran in 285 different pairs of shoes, including a streak of 257 days wearing a different model.
