I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say, it’s been a crappy 4 weeks of just not feeling good. And the cough. Oh my, the cough. I finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with whooping cough. It took 5 days of antibiotic, working from home in my pajamas and binge-watching Netflix but I finally feel that I’m on the tail end of it.

When I chatted with my doctor last week she said that exercise was fine as long as I listened to my body. Luckily, I’m mature enough to know that this is a very important part of any recovery, whether it be from an injury or illness so I started back with some light workouts.

Today I ventured out to the Dipsea stairs, one of my favorite places to run. And walk. Because all I could manage was a nice slow climb up the stairs to the Dipsea trailhead to the Sun trail before running easily back down to Old Mill Park.

Let’s talk about that climb for a minute. Wow. It’s going to take me some time to get my wind back. Those stairs were tough. And because I’ve been out of commission for a few weeks I knew it would be hard but my plan was to just get out there and see what my body felt like doing.

If you’ve had to take time to heal from an injury or get over an illness you know that it’s frustrating to be sidelined. And then you get worried that you’ll lose all of your fitness or find it hard to get back on track.

While it might not be easy, especially if you took more than a week or two off, the key is consistency.

Odds are, you won’t come back running 5 miles or lifting heavy weights if you’ve been on the couch, but you can walk for a mile or swing around a kettlebell 10 or 15 times. Right?

Then the next time you can do it again, and then again, and again. Once you have been back a week or so, you can go farther, walk farther or add in a few minutes or running or add in some more strength exercises. You build. One workout at a time.

Remember, patience and consistency will always yield results.

Now go run!

Keli 🙂