Staying healthy is the hardest part

Being sick is a clearly the bodies way of telling you that something is wrong and that you need a break. It's just annoying to have life (and training) interrupted. It is not uncommon for me to get sick at least every 8-10 weeks (typically, sinus and/or ear-related).

In my engineering mind, figuring it out is similar to figuring out an equation - there are variables you have in your life that create the conditions and circumstances that cause ("trigger") illness. Over the last year, I've been struggling to identify these - without much success unfortunately. Here are the top triggers:

1. Air travel - a combination of the test-tube and pressure changes
2. Alcohol - my faces swells, constricting my sinuses
3. Allergies - the desert is always blooming
4. Over-training - too much too fast degrades my immune system
5. Weather - changes in barometric pressure?

As you can probably guess, I've been sidelined this last week due to allergies/illness. While I managed to get a few runs in while in Seattle last week, I finally had enough of feeling like crap and went in to get some antibiotics.

I'm clearly behind in my training - which sucks. Even though I've gotten used to it, I really just wish I could figure out how to limit my exposure to "the funk", as my wife calls it.