Running with Illness (Andrew)

Often, when I’m running on my own, I can tell I’m ill before I’m ill. My body reacts differently, easy sections become much harder, I’m sweating pulling my shorts on, before I even start running. Running alone can a great early detection system as you spot your running with an illness before…

… you run with an illness. 

Some runners live for the machismo of running in any conditions. Wind, rain, hurricane, plague of locusts, it doesn’t matter what is happening in the world they will keep running. Even injury and illness don’t stop them. One leg broken? Just hop? Two legs broken? Switch to a marathon in a wheelchair. Clinically dead? Not an excuse, where’s the spark pads?

I’ve also operated under the maxim “above the neck, fine, below the neck, rest.” I do not know where I got this from or whether it has any connection to any known medical science. Given it dismisses all mental illness, I suspect it’s from TwinBikeWife’s mum’s little book of medical sayings. My mother-in-law used to be a nurse, in the same way that quackery used to be a legitimate medical science. She was a nurse in the 1960s. She quit to raise a family and has been using the same medical knowledge as The Beatles ever since. The Beatles, whose song ‘Doctor Robert’ recommended their friendly GP, Dr Bob, whose prescription for a grazed knee was LSD and whose prescription for a headache was, you guessed it, LSD.

TwinBikeMotherInLaw last saw the inside of a hospital before decimalisation was invented. I suspect I may have got this advice from her. Don’t listen to it. Don’t run when ill, below or above the neck, but do use your solo runs to check your own body. You’ll be surprised how a run can warn you that blue light is about to flash.