Once the race season gets started staying healthy becomes the most crucial role of the athlete. Being sick totally negates all of the year's training. There's only so many opportunities to race in the season and if you show up sick to a race you might as well not have shown up. This is partially why we are such Freaks when it comes to health and sanitation. At the first sign of illness we start trying various potions and voodoo in order to halt the sickness (and at the same time assiduously avoiding anything that might be on USADA or WADA's banned substance list).

Thursday I got hit with a sore throat and started feeling crummy. I took Friday off completely so that my body could channel all its energy to my immune system. Of course, since we're so paranoid about preventing sickness I took my day off way before most normal people would consider taking a sick day since it was before I was actually sick. By this morning, although physically not any better, I was ready to go for a ski again. You've got to take care of your body without going crazy from inactivity, after all. We had a 45min recovery ski this morning but I was going so easy that I didn't pay attention to where I was going or the time. I found a sweet downhill which I blithely skied down. I got to the bottom of Lars Taylor Way, found myself at the Sovereign Lake trails with 1:15 on my watch and realized that it was going to be a longer ski than planned, particularly at the pace I was skiing today. Yep, 2:30 ski today. And I couldn't even take a proper nap afterwards because my bed is behind one of the couches in the living/dining/kitchen room and it is awfully hard to sleep when you have 6 other people in your room watching tv and living their lives. drats. today, plan not followed.