I was the most sick I have been in years today. I just felt aweful all day. I just slept and watched movies and tried to eat and drink good stuff. Tomarrow will be better.
From Sasha Pachev on Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 18:58:47
Seth - looks like your immune system is a weak spot. It may not be pathologically weak as in something that would make your doctor concerned, but it does cause problems when you run competitively. I have struggled with the issue of keeping your immune system strong while training hard. Below is a summary of what I've learned.
You do not get sick because there are too many germs, nor do you get sick because your immune system is weak. You get sick because your immune system is too weak to handle the germs around you. Therefore, the strategy of staying healthy is a) maximize the strength of the immune system and b) minimize the exposure to the germs.
I found that the following is critical in accomplishing a), and you must have all of it right, or else the weakest link in the chain fails you:
* Sleep. It is a challenge for me, which I solve by having a strict bed time curfew. Unless it is something extremely out of the ordinary and involves somebody in dire need, at 10:00 PM I am in bed and nothing gets me out of it.
* Stress control. Aside from the obvious stress from school or work deadlines, conflicts, arguments, being upset, etc, things like travel, shopping, and site-seeing are also a form of stress. Those things are important and add to the quality of life, but you must realize that at 120 miles a week there is a certain quota of how much of that you can do without compromising your immune system, and if the circumstances require it, you may need to taper for such activities.
* Diet. Everything you put into your body has an effect on your immune system. Some things affect it more than others, but pretty much every time you take a bite it either builds or destroys your defenses. Learn which foods make your body stronger, and which do the opposite, and eat with awareness. The notion that you have to weaken your body to enjoy the foods you eat is a big lie. It is a great experience to eat something that tastes great, and then have your body feel as great as that food tasted.
* Magic immune system foods. For me it is garlic. When I remember to eat it consistently, and I take care of the other items, I do not get sick even though I spend most of the day in the same house with 5 children ages 9 and under.
To address b) more often than not there is not much you can do except wash your hands frequently. But if a) is good you are often able to deal with whatever b) will throw at you.
Or maybe he just had some food poisoning that got him sick for a day. Independent of immune system.
From Sasha Pachev on Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 19:44:06
No, this is a second time in a month. And he had mono before. Even if it was food poisoning, suseptibility to food poisoning is an immune system weakness. Every time you get sick, it is always germ X with some technical name. The question is why your body could not kill that germ X when somebody who sat next to you and got exposed the same way did.
Jon - you could learn from the above as well. You had a classical case of getting sick from the lack of balance in the stress of training, the stress of life, and the recovery procedures this year.
But everything Sasha said in the above is true. When I don't get enough sleep or put crapy food in the body I feel it and come down with something. It is the bodies way of making you slow down and take care of it.
Sasha, if you could have found a way to make my spring less stressful (especially the whole house buying/selling/moving part), I would have jumped all over it.
Sometimes it is completly impossible to eliminate stress and get to bed at the appointed time and and and and and and. I think we would all jump on that band wagon of less stress if we could:)
From Sasha Pachev on Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 21:26:53
Jon - when you cannot sleep and eat right, you have to cut the mileage and intensity. But usually you can at least eat right.
Thanks for all the advise. I will continue to work on building up the immune system. This same bug has almost half of Meagan's Family sick. But now I am doing much better. This 4th of July 5k should be a lot of fun.
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