I'm not as sick as I feel.

I guess running while sick is like running when injured.  Your family and "friends" tell me to slow down and take it easy.

You gotta rest.

Don't push to hard.

Continuing to exercise while (insert ailment here) will only cause more problems down the road.

All valid reasons to not exercise and risk overdoing anything.  But I am not that amenable to "rest" when I haven't "earned" it.  I like to think I know my body and tell the difference between feeling icky and being truly sick.

For the past two weeks I have suffered in stages, from the nagging sore throat to drippy nose and finally occasional cough.  It really sapped my energy a few days.  But I can say that when I laced them up (actually my VFFs use velco, but the reference isn't as cool) I had the energy to run where and how long I wanted to go.  I'm proud of that.

Why stay inside and stew in my own germs when I can get outside and give my lungs a solid air exchange for one to two hours.  My sinuses cleared out in the process as well.

This takes me back to running with an injury.  I think my focus on doing so has shifted somewhat recently.  I blogged previously how I try to run no matter what.  Injury and pain were things to be ignored.  Now I see the scenario in a different light.  The pain I have dealt with in the past few months were not injuries in the clinical sense.  No stress fractures.  No sprains or strains.  Nothing torn or ruptured.  And nothing broken.  What I have dealt with have been the result of lazy form and poor focus on the details of running.  Form is an art.  Form must be catered to and constantly supervised.  Allowing form to break down is a sure way to developing bad habits which lead to pain and injury.  But by running through the pains I experience I have learned to course correct and run through the pain to something better.  I am not ignoring and running from, rather I am running along with till the form improves and the "issue" goes away.

If you develop an overuse injury, rest will not cure the injury.  The injury in locked in your form and motion.  Once you resume running, or any form of exercise where form in vital, the old form habits will resume and the injury shall return.  It is only a matter of time.  Learn about your body.  Learn how to move with efficiency and grace.  Learn to listen to you body and when it tells you something is not right.  Then you can learn to correct and overcome the type of overuse injuries that lie in wait for most runners.

The injury you suffer does not spell doom or mark an end your efforts at better health.  It merely is a sign post to take a different direction to a path of more informed movement.  When you come to a fork in the road, take it.