Don't Tell Me Not to Run

The holiday season brought with it a nice little cold for little ol' Summer this year.  Nothing too serious.  So far, it's been a few days of a scratchy throat, dry cough, but more than anything else, a general feeling of fatigue and malaise.

Which brings me to my gripe.  It seems that every non-runner out there keeps trying to tell me not to run because I'm, ahem, sick.  Apparently, I should be resting.  Running, they've told me, is making me sick, or if not that, it's certainly hampering my ability to get well.  And God forbid I go outside in the cold!  That's what kills people!  (Haven't you seen all those runners with colds out there on the streets just dropping dead on the sidewalks?  I mean, it's so bad here in Portland, the city's going to have to hire a snow plow to just shovel them into a mass grave somewhere.)

My standard rule is that I still run when sick, unless one or more of the following happens:

• fever, which pretty much means I don't have the strength to run anyway
• intense migraine
• nausea/vomiting, including the occasional nasty hangover, which is pretty rare these days; this also overlaps with the migraine category
• ungodly pain of some other sort; also, see migraine

It's possible that there's more to this list, but I doubt it would be much.  This basically means that colds or moderate illness don't prevent me from running.  In fact, as other runners know, running makes runners feel better.  And I don't mean in some psychological way, as in it's fulfilling and satisfying to the mind in a way that artists would say making art makes them feel better.  That's a factor too, but it's not what I mean.  I also don't mean it in some obsessive and/or addictive way, as in a crack addict telling you that they feel better after smoking crack.  Although . . . there can be an element of that as well.  (The running, not the crack, just for the record.)  I'm not even talking about a runner's high, while that's always pleasurable.

What I'm talking about is the genuine physical change that my body undergoes from a run, as it relates to the immune system.  My lungs and nose clear.  My energy levels increase.  My circulation is better.  All those little nagging, finicky annoyances (i.e., sore throat, stuffiness, general discomfort, etc.) just dissolve away.  Really, I've most often credited my lack of getting sick in recent years to running.  And when I do happen to catch a little something, it's the running that keeps it at bay for longer, keeps the symptoms to a minimum, and usually lets it pass through much quicker than anything else.

It's these people that keep telling me not to do it that drive me crazy.  As if I have no idea when I'm too sick to run.  Guess what?  A few years ago, I had walking pneumonia.  I didn't run then.  Know why?  I was too fucking sick.  I didn't need someone to convince me not to do it.  It was obvious based on how my body felt.  (Also, see "fever.")  Same concept here.  When I'm really sick (barring some weird injury), I don't even have the desire to run.  So If I'm well enough to want to get out there to run, I'm pretty much well enough to do it.  And it's actually good for you.  

I'm not making it up just to support some deep compulsion.  It's fucking science.  Look it up.