runless weekend

Woke up on Friday feeling terrible -- I'd been stuffed up and restless all night. I was getting up to go to work, when Wil pointed out that I sounded and looked terrible. Oh. So I decided to call in sick, and spent most of the day in bed dozing and snorgling with the cats.

Still felt terrible on Saturday, which meant we didn't do our long run. Nor did we do it on Sunday. Accepted wisdom is that you *can* run with a cold, as long as it's "above your chest". Since it was my head that was stuffed up, I could have run... except I felt weak and woozy.

Flew to San Francisco yesterday, still feeling a bit under the weather, but had a quiet night in the hotel room and plenty of sleep, so I woke up feeling okay. I love running in new places, so I laced up and headed out to run along the Embarcadero.

The worst part was actually getting to the Embarcadero -- the lights are timed to stop pedestrians after each block, which made for slow going. But once I reached the bay, I was good to go. The sun was just coming up behind the Bay Bridge, so I ran with the sun at my back, past the Alcatraz ferries, past the SF Zinzanni, past Pier 39, past Fishermen's Wharf, and out to the spot where the open-water swimmers train. Brrrrr! Two of them were out there, swimming away. Yes, they're my heroes.

Turned around there and ran back the other direction; this time into the sun and a growing headwind. But I felt pretty good and just plodded slowly along. Had to dodge commuters at the Ferry Building, which was fun. I remember how I used to feel when runners passed me -- sorta inspired, intrigued. I wonder if anyone had those thoughts about me? (Probably not -- ha!)

Then the long, slow trek back up Mission to my hotel, the fabulous Palace. I swear, I have 20-foot ceilings in my room. And it's blissfully quiet here.

Anyway, feeling nervous about having missed the 20-mile run at the weekend. We have a 12K scheduled for Sunday (the 12Ks of Christmas), so I don't really fancy adding that much mileage. Maybe we'll just hope that our base miles have us "fit enough", and run a 20 miler on the 21st. It's getting very, very close...