An Addition to the Runner’s Medicine Cabinet

“Have you run yet today?”

That was Cassie’s question to me Sunday during the opening prelude in church. I shook my head, and explained that we are all fighting colds and I opted to rest this morning and would probably run later that afternoon.

“That was what I wanted to ask you—what will you do if you’re sick?”

I shrugged and told her I’d cross that bridge when I got there…the problem was, I was already there. For a few days the cold had shifted around from my chest to my head to my throat and back. I had run through it all…I figured a mile wasn’t hurting anything, and I could hardly quit a week into the resolution. But Ted and I are training for the Lehigh Valley Half in April, and I won't make much progress at a mile a day.

So I sat in church, sniffles and all, trying to wonder if I was feeling tired due to the illness or lack of sleep or both. And Cassie’s words rung in my ear—“If you are sick, you shouldn’t run. You can miss a day or two…”

Not everyone is so lucky as to marry someone whose personality is so much different from your own that you are as compatible as color opposites on the color wheel. That is Ted and I. And I am even luckier where one of my best friends is about as similar to Ted as one can get.

This is one reason Cassie is such a dear friend to me. Not only do we get along great, and have a blast doing it, but she is my female equivalent of Ted…my voice of reason and the grounded factor to my ditzyness. And here she is, explaining to me what I should already know—if I’m sick, I shouldn’t run. End of story. (I still opted for a mile Sunday, but still took Cassie’s advice and bypassed the 6 mile run on the training schedule).

But Sunday night I knew I had to do something. I knew the congestion would play a large factor in a good night’s sleep that night and a good night’s sleep was exactly what I needed if I was going to fight this and get on with the training.

Enter God’s Gift to the Medicine Cabinet—Vicks VaporRub.

Growing up, my brother and spent the months of November through March sharing the vaporizer. It would spend a week or two in my room, then move to his. The smell of hot Vicks in the bedroom was a staple and when I close my eyes, I can still see the jar of Vicks and the small butter knife my mom used to spread it in the vaporizer. I even had a T-shirt devoted to when things got really bad and my chest was smothered in the stuff—it had permanent grease marks on the front and smelled like…well…Vicks.

Sunday night I lathered myself up and slid on an old T-shirt. The cool tingly sensation took me back instantly, comforting me, as well as enabling me to breathe openly and freely (and sent Ted reeling to the other side of the bed). And, like magic, Monday morning I could feel the cold entering it’s final stages and I’m happy to report a full recovery is on the horizon. Mental or not, it worked and that's all I cared about!

I have now promoted Vicks VaporRub for the inevitable winter colds to the “What’s in my Medicine Cabinet” list, right beside Advil for sore muscles, petroleum jelly for chafing sports bras, band-aids for the blisters, and countless knee and ankle braces.