Run when sick? If it's all in your head

I thought I had made it through the holiday germ-o-sphere in good shape. All through Christmas and New Years were the signs of cold and flu—the last being a woman in a shop selling me a food blender. She could hardly talk and complained how sick she was, blaming it on antibiotics. Okay.

I had managed 12 straight days of running—a number of them in pretty harsh winter weather. It felt good. Seemed like a great start to the New Year and my various resolutions to be a better person.

Today, I’m slogging through the fourth day of a nasty cold, punctuated by an especially sore throat. A bad cold changes your psyche. After you’ve been sick for a few days, it’s hard to imagine being healthy again. Of course when you’re fit and well, you have little mind for what it’s like to be ill.

What’s the conventional wisdom about exercise and illness? Should you run with a cold—or rest?
One authority cited in a relevant Runner’s World article is David Nieman, a Ph.D. who has run 58 marathons and ultras. He prescribes the "neck rule."

According to Nieman, “Symptoms below the neck (chest cold, bronchial infection, body ache) require time off, while symptoms above the neck (runny nose, stuffiness, sneezing) don't pose a risk to runners continuing workouts."

A New York Times story, "Don’t starve a cold of exercise," points to research showing “no difference in symptoms between [a] group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds.”

My symptoms include the throat and chest—and certainly the part of the head that’s psychological. It’s depressing to be sidelined. It makes the cold seem worse.

Better hit the streets a bit or try out the treadmill today, or the world will pass me by.
 
Or maybe not. There will be world enough and time tomorrow.