Oink
– My wife’s Facebook status on Wednesday afternoon
I spent the majority of Thanksgiving Week running from the pigs.
They came for my younger daughter Saturday night, then for my wife on Monday night and finally for my older daughter on Wednesday night. No, I wasn’t being chased by the police. I haven’t called a cop a ‘pig’ since high school. OK, maybe since college, but I digress.
I was running from the swine flu. Wednesday night we had three girls down. I was the last family member standing. Our Thanksgiving plans to visit family had been laid to waste. I scrambled last minute to find a Turkey and all the trimmings. All week I was thinking one thing – with the rest of the family out of commission, I could NOT get sick. My wife had been hit especially hard and was pretty much bedridden. My older daughter (too young to take care of the household anyway) was just entering the worst of it. I had to make sure that the piggies couldn’t get me.
I firmly believe that breaking a major sweat goes a long way toward boosting your immune system. So starting last Monday, I ran. Not away from my family – they needed me to take care of them. No, I ran away from the flu. Every day, I ran. Whether it was my quick 5K sprint on Thanksgiving Day morning or my slower but longer 10 mile runs on the dreadmill – er treadmill – I was determined to break a major sweat every day. I was going to make my body an inhospitable place for any little pigs who might want to take up residence.
I ran more miles this week than I have in any of the weeks in the past several months.
My legs…are…tired.
But you know what? It worked. At this point, as I write, the girls have all come out of the depths of swine and we are pretty much back to normal. Knock on wood, I am swine-free.
Is running the cure to the H1N1 virus? No, absolutely not. But I do think that it helped reduce the effects it had on my body. There is no way that I wasn’t exposed to it. I will admit now that I woke up both Wednesday and Thursday mornings with pounding headaches and I went to bed both of those nights with a very, very slight case of the sniffles, but it never got worse than that. The sniffles were gone each morning and the headaches went away with breakfast and coffee.
So if you feel a chill coming on or your nose is starting to drip, this is my prescription: Run once a day – either hard for 30 minutes or at an easier pace for 60 – 90 minutes. Either way, break a sweat – a real sweat.
You’ll thank yourself for it later.
Run Luau Run 
oh my sweet, dear newbie blogging husband.
you’ve taught me a lot about not tempting fate over the years. never again will i declare a celts victory with ten seconds left on a shot clock. never will i say, ‘wow, that was a great game’ before the sox have walked off the field. never, ever will i call a pats victory before the teams flood the field. you’ve taught me well.
so .. a word, rookie?
do
not
tempt
the blog gods
repeat after me .. i pray to blog i don’t get the oinks.
hope for the best. they may let you off this once.
It’s tough for the kids because of the exposure they get at school. But I firmly believe that there is a mental or fear aspect associated with getting sick. You get sick, you don’t understand it, and you panic. Coupled with mass media reports that people are dying in throes (which is untrue), and you really freak out. Freaking out weakens your immune system even more. People look for your reaction to the threat of fear, and if you do not waver, you can repel that fear, as you rightly did.
The problem is with the public is that they are so easily unnerved. I think what would be better even than just telling people to go run out and get an H1N1 vaccine, is to tell people what the details are, in other words, why this one is different than the common cold, why you need a new vaccine every year because of the genetic mutation rate, why the common cold is actually MORE dangerous than H1N1 (with a less than 1% morbidity rate, but very easily transmitted), and why both the common cold and the new one, are still not even close to what would happen if the bird flu (60% morbitidy rate, but rarely transmitted) mutated into a form that was easily transmitted. The Ebola virus is even worse (did anyone else read the book the Hot Zone besides me in 96 or so?). Reading that book freaked me out WAY more than anything I’ve seen so far, thankfully.
Cheers.
Ed Hopkins
P.S. Ben Park ’93 works at the CDC in Atlanta in case you didn’t know.
Oops I spelled morbidity wrong the second time. Not a word I use usually!
shhhhh! the blog gods will hear you!
As penance I ran 10 more miles last night after posting…
I swear I was reading my father’s guide to life 🙂 – He’s 64 and still running. To this day, when I get sick, I have this horrible feeling that I somehow didn’t run hard enough.
I hope you escape. We got the H1N1 vaccines, and the kids go back on Friday for their booster (if there is any supply). If its of any help, both of our local doctor friends (one pedi, one infectious disease specialist) think the H1N1 has peaked in the area.
run on, run on
My take on it is that because you ran a lot this summer during the day, you have higher vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin at all – it’s more like a hormone, and it’s an important immunomodulator. Most people in this country are either deficient or at suboptimal levels. I’m a big proponent of vitamin D now – more info at vitamindcouncil.org.
I’ve been surrounded by people who were fighting various flus and colds for the last 45 days. Fortunately, I’ve also been keeping up with my running, and I think it’s really helped with my immune system. Whether sitting next to coughing, feverish VPs in the close quarters of our office or sleeping next to my feverish husband, I’ve managed to avoid the illnesses, and I have to agree, I think my running is a big part of it. Keep healthy!!
…and may the running gods stay with you!!!
Love,
Mom
Good for you Matt! Glad you weren’t hit.
Er, sorry the rest of your household felt so bad…and over a holiday!…not fair. but i’m glad you were able to run through it. you’re doing a good job of highlighting the various benefits of running, ones most people overlook, so i’m enjoying these descriptions very much. i guess in the media you tend to hear the same stories and benefits, repeated over and over, so it’s nice to get a perspective like this, one approaching things from a different angle.
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