Great Workout week ends abruptly

Well I did a bike/swim day on Wednesday. I ran with my ipod today. I'm glad I got the podcast suggestion from Neil because the current music in my ipod makes me run really fast and I can't keep it up after some of those songs.

Today I swam farther and with better form than I had to date. I still need to figure out a method to keep track of my laps, but it felt good and I concentrated really hard on keeping my head down. I'm not keeping up with Sophia but concentration is important right now. Unfortunately at the end of the swim I found out the pool was going to be closed after Saturday until they are able to retrofit the drain with the covers required by law. The manager estimated that it would not be done until after the new year because they were unable to find any covers in time. I'm so sad, I just joined this pool....

I was not discouraged and actually worked out again on Thursday. This meant I had worked out everyday, in some form, all week. I was feeling great and was trying out all the suggestions friends had sent (see below) but then disaster.

Thursday night Riley got really sick. It was scary because it seemed to happen so fast. Runny nose in the morning, difficulty breathing by midnight. I called the oncall nurse for reassurance and she said I could wait until morning to bring him to the doctor. I stayed up with him all night and even when he went to sleep I was too worried and just watched him to make sure he was breathing.

We took him to Dr Lee first thing in the morning and found out he had the croup. They gave him steroids which was scary but they said it would insure that the swelling of the windpipe was minimal. He slept fine Friday night under the vaporizer but I skipped the workout on Saturday morning to make sure he was okay. The medicine kept him awake and by Saturday night he was miserably tired. It was a long night so again today, no workout.

At this point I don't know when I'll workout again. Seems like time is flying by and with my todo list before Christmas, I'm not sure how to fit a workout in (even though I know I just said "there is always time for a workout"). I'm so tired and the rain has started. I'm hoping to at least run before Christmas. I hope the gym is open during the break....

Suggestions from friends on tools to help with the workouts:

• http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ Suggested by a neighbor, this site allows you to map out the path you took or want to take. It will give you mile/km markers and tally up your total distance. You can save your maps and share with others.

• http://www.mapmyrun.com/ Suggested by Sophia, this will track your distance and create workout reports and calculate calories burned, weight lost, etc.

• http://podrunner.com Suggested by Neil, this series of podcast help you build up stamina to complete various race lengths. I've tried the 10K series but think I need to back track a bit.