I haven’t ran or done any exercising in about a week. I thought I had a great excuse too: I have a cold. Nothing too dramatic, no fever, no flu aches, just your average cold, with sneezing, some coughing, congested sinuses… you know, the common cold. For at least three days, all I wanted to do is rest in bed. Not that I did – I am a Mom and Moms only get full bedrest if their minding a fetus at the time.

What I did take a break from was my C25K running plan. I figured, if you’re sick, you need to let your body heal, right? And isn’t rest part of the healing? This view was shared by everyone around me, so nothing was easier than skipping a week of practice, albeit with some pangs of regret over losing momentum.

Looks like I was wrong though. I finally did some reading online today and turns out not only you can exercise and run when you have a cold, it’s even recommended. Not talking about anything with a fever, or the flu, but if your symptoms are limited to coughing and sneezing, some head pain and a stuffy nose, running may actually help you feel better.

I found this interesting article about this subject, where they cite an actual research about this:

The investigators found no difference in symptoms between the group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds. But when the exercisers assessed their symptoms, Dr. Kaminsky said, “people said they felt O.K. and, in some cases, they actually felt better.

In other words, exercise won’t make you heal faster, but it should make you feel a bit better. At the very least, you won’t be worse off for it and you will be sticking to your plan.

So, I guess no more excuses for me? I think I might just put the theory to the test this afternoon!