If you can believe it, I got strep again on Tuesday. So this week, I neglected writing since there hasn’t been much to write about in the way of running. I lost 3 days, although one of them was a planned rest day anyway. This post I’m going to try to wrap up the whole week.

Monday I managed to do an hour on the treadmill at my marathon pace, 8.2 miles with an incline of 1.5. Things felt great during.

Tuesday, I woke up and felt like total crap. I went to work and decided to skip running at the gym because I felt I was getting sick. The previous Sunday my daughter got a stomach flu and it turned out she still had Strep despite just coming off an antibiotic – she got strep too a week ago. Then two days later, Tuesday, I’m feeling sick and I leave work early that day.

Wednesday I have all the same symptoms as when I had strep a month ago. I go to the urgent care office for another antibiotic and the nurse practitioner doesn’t seem to want to listen to why I know I have strep throat. She points to the “rapid test”, the same one I posted a picture of when I had strep last month, and states “but it’s clearly negative”. Those test are notoriously inaccurate I remind her. She huffs and says, “Well, if you want me to send in a throat culture I will. And in two days, we’ll have an answer and if it’s positive we can give you an anti-biotic.” At this point my blood began to boil and I told her give me the antibiotic and if in two days its not positive, call me and I stop taking it. After rolling her eyes she agrees. Wow.

At the pharmacy, while I waited for my prescription, I remembered I have a lot of flex spending cash left over from 2009 burning a hole in my pocket which I’ll lose if I don’t spend by March. So, on a whim I bought a cholesterol monitor, a bunch of tests, and a blood pressure monitor. I’m actually pretty happy about this in some nerdy kind of way. It was a bit fun testing myself and my wife, and I seriously need to get my blood pressure down; I’m prehypertension.. no surprise there actually.
Total : 172
HDL : 61
LDL : 86
TRI : 125
BP : 130/80

Also I picked up some glucose tablets. I guess they’re for diabetics or hypoglycemics. I figured they’re a cheaper alternative to gels and much more appetizing. I honestly can’t stand gels. Most brands, especially power bar gels, taste horrible. Gu’s, I can get down but I’m starting to suspect they might be responsible for the stomach upset I’ve coincidentally had every time I’ve taken them. Plus, I’d rather not have all the sodium.


The glucose tablets are basically no frills glucose, taste good and are meant to spike your blood sugar fast, which is exactly what you want from a gel when running. I generally don’t take gels, or any fuel, during long runs, (just races) but I tried them out today before doing 18.6 miles. They seem to work well. And are easy to carry. More on that later.

Thursday the antibiotic was already kicking in and I felt well enough to go back to work. While there, I got a call from the urgent care office informing me my throat culture came back positive for strep and that the nurse practitioner who I saw wants me to continue taking the antibiotic. You know, this actually pissed me off? I felt like responding “no shit, sherlock”. Instead, I just mumbled thanks and let her know the antibiotic is already helping.

Friday, all I could think about was running again. During my lunch hour back on the treadmill. 8.4 miles in an hour on a 1.5 incline. It should have felt easy, and it did mostly, but I was exhausted by the end.

Saturday, I wanted to run long, but due to time constraints I was only able to do 10. Family duties called, but it was great to be outdoors. Lots of snow was predicted, but thankfully none of it came. I was really beginning to fear having to drag out another 20 on the treadmill. So it didn’t matter how cold it was, I was happy to be on the road. Things felt great mostly, but by the time 10 miles was over, I was sort of beat and happy to be done.

Today, Sunday, I still had 20 written into my plan. It was 19F with 33 predicted so I waited around for it to warm up. By 11am it was still only 25 so I went out to the Rockys. I felt a lot of fatigue in my legs. The 10 yesterday was a bit fast, but it didn’t explain why I was so tired. Nonetheless, I tried a few of the glucose tablets and I really believe they gave me a bit of pep. Things got easier. Up until 13 miles I was able to hold it well, and then the hills got to me – I would have liked to have had another glucose tab to see if it really made a difference. Anyway, things were slow from there on, and I think I just wanted to stop by 15. At that point, I was headed back and began to think about someone’s recent blog post about struggling with long runs and the response I wrote. Ironic that my long run now just fizzled out and came to a crawl by the end. Ending with 18.25 total.

Later today, by chance, I found a some debate online about antibiotics and fatigue…. who knew? :|