Today's walk report: 010714

Calling in sick?

Last night I started feeling a cold coming on. My throat was sore, I was getting achy, my nose was runny... we all know the symptoms. If there was any fever it was very slight. I just didn't feel good. It has also been about 18 years since I've had a cold or flu. There were a few times where I thought I was getting sick but on every occasion it lasted less than a day and I concluded I was merely run down. In fact, just a day before I moved back home to take care of my parents I was feeling that way. I went to a pharmacy that day, July 4th, 2011 and bought a bottle of Nyquil because I thought all I need is to move in here, get sick and also not sleep. I never took the Nyquil--until last night. With the symptoms I was experiencing I decided I didn't want to struggle by adding not being able to sleep to my misery.  Besides this was just getting started, I was supposed to expect to feel worse, right? So, a shot of Nyquil, I put Pandora One on the TV and dozed off on the couch with my cat on top of me.

I'm not sure what time I fell asleep or what time I woke up to go sleep properly in my bed but it was early and I couldn't have dozed off for more than a couple of hours. When I got up I took inventory and said, yes, Eric, you are definitely sick, plan on sleeping in tomorrow. I had a glass of water and crawled into bed.

I did sleep in. I got up at a usual time, about 7 A.M. to do the usual 1st thing most of us do when we wake up, went back to bed much to the chagrin of Lucy The Cat who was expecting her A.M. treat and was out again for a little over two hours. When I woke I went straight to the shower. I told myself, you'll feel better if you take a shower. I was still sort of groggy but by the time I got out and was dying myself off I thought... I don't feel 1/2 bad. I was expecting to feel worse. I even thought, you just need to wake up more and start doing stuff, then you'll realize just how bad you feel. Coffee going down, the 1st few swigs, ah yes my throat still hurts. However, by the time I finished my coffee I felt even better and my throat was still grousing but only a little. Did I forget how to be sick after all these years? Maybe so. I was a little tired come 2:30 P.M. so I decided to lie down on the couch, listen to music and rest a little. At 3:15 I was ready to get the cat off me again and go walk. I thought I'd better take it easy though.

Meanwhile, it appears I might have a temperamental iPod dock cable and my iPod ever charged last night. In fact it had run itself down to no battery. I moved it to  the dock in the living room and gave it 15 minutes to charge figuring the walk would no more than 1/2 hour. By this time I was getting a little anxious to get out since I was less than a hour away from sunset. I imagined myself walking the southbound neighborhood walk and just doing one zig and one zag. Roughly 3.2 km. I put the most energetic music on the iPod on play and headed out...

Amazing. It was obvious my health wasn't 100% but I was flying along and once I was rounding the 1st major straightaway onto the 2nd, about 500 meters in, I decided not to go into the nearby neighborhood but head for the campus instead.

Mostly because it was going to get dark on me and partly because I thought my "regular" campus walk of 8.79 km would be too much I skipped part of that route but still did 7.39 km in excellent time and to be honest, it felt better than the last 6 days have felt. So much for being sick. Nevertheless, I am going to prepare myself some chicken soup for dinner, it couldn't hurt.