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So what did Torbjorn have to say?

Hi Mike,

You did the right thing. If you are there and you feel sick there are no good reasons to race. I sometimes ask myself when I'm borderline: are you sick? If the answer is no, I race. 

Two weekends ago I raced a little sick in a relay. I would not have raced if it was an individual race since I felt lactate in my legs already during the warm-up, however it was a relay where my team-mates had done all their preparations for the race and I didn't "feel that sick". I skied OK but was a little off, like 30-45 seconds from a normal race in a 5K. It set me back 2-3 days- at least since my "cold" got a little worse.

I did not have a sore throat or coughed but had a headache and tired/sore muscles - not bad at all.

This weekend I felt slightly sick and very tired the two day before the race but my warm up felt normal and I had a normal race without feeling as strong as I have felt in some fall workouts. (I did manage to win due to a smart race rather than a super strong race). I take this as a sign of getting stronger.

My advice for you now is to "take your time".

Do easy distance and make sure that you feel normal/good in at least one distance session before you do anything hard.

If you truly are sick like strong cough, headache, fewer - don't work out.

So Torbjorn said I did the right thing.

And if I had to do it all over again? Still a tough choice. I got chilled on Saturday and I was worse off on Sunday because of it. That suggests I made the right decision.

On Monday, my resting heart rate was still high - 54. On Tuesday it was still a bit high - 51. I did run Tuesday night for an easy hour, and that resulted in me sweating all night - my body's reaction to be under high stress. In fact, my heart rate has yet to go below 52 in the last week!!

But I didn't feel THAT sick on Saturday, and the race was short. Maybe the 45 minute distance ski plus the hour standing around in the cold taking pictures was just as much stress as if I'd raced for 30 minutes. 

So would I have done things differently?

I think I should have raced on Saturday...

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