Starve a fever and feed a cold.  Okay, but can you run with a cold?  With only two weeks remaining before my next marathon I sort of want to know.  Several top search results speak to a rule of thumb termed the “neck rule”.  You can run with symptoms above the neck line like sinuses and a sore throat, but not with symptoms below the neck like a chest cold, fever, aches and pains or hacking cough.  I’m in the coughing stage.  I’m not sure if my cough counts as a proper hack and this advice was from the Internet, so I ran a few miles this afternoon to test the waters.  I might have had a small fever over the weekend but that’s gone now along with the achiness.  I don’t think I overdid it; I was simply looking to break a sweat.

I didn’t expect to sweat as much as in this picture of me running the final mile of the Denver Marathon, it’s so cool out with this fall weather that three miles wasn’t enough to work up much of anything.  It was enough though to make me regret not running for the last 4 days.  The color from the leaves and feel of the crisp air – it makes me want to play some football.  I’m getting up to the Continental Divide Saturday for that 20 mile hike I missed due to this cold.  I don’t care that I got a second letter from the HOA about staining my front porch.  Screw ’em.  The weekend is mine.  I pay enough in HOA dues that they should be staining the porch for me.

Of course the real reason I got out there is I saw Keith finish up his run.  He had a nice one.  So I got in a few myself and it was glorious.  Autumn in Colorado.  Nothing beats this.  I’ll take it easy again tomorrow and then increase my distance Wednesday if I’m feeling recovered.  Thursday is a night game on ESPN for the Buffs.  I’ll be going with my buddy Jed. Might be tight but I’ll squeeze in another short run if I have time.  Not sure what I’ll have time for on Friday because I’ll be driving up to camp out with Rob in Silverthorne for that 20 mile hike on Saturday.