Running with sinusitis is a bad idea. I say this as a man on consecutive day 2109 of a daily running streak, so I know what I am admitting.

This morning I saw my GP and received an official diagnosis. What started three weeks ago as a head cold, with congestion in my nose and throat, has moved deeper. I cannot clear it by blowing my nose, coughing or sneezing. The pressure sits in the sinuses around my head and eyes and stays there.

What running with sinusitis feels like

Sinusitis means inflammation of the sinuses. The name sounds mild. The experience is not.

The best way I can describe a run right now is water in my head. Every stride shakes it up and down. I feel a pulse of pain with each footstep. Outside the run, I live at about 75% capacity. I am not in bed, but I am not sharp either. Over a long streak, 75% is a grind.

The part I find hardest to say out loud is the doubt. The GP told me this could take weeks or months. In worse cases it turns chronic and stays long term. I hope I clear it in days. I have no evidence yet to say I will.

What my GP said about exercising through it

I asked the question I most wanted answered. Did running through it make things worse?

The GP's view was that I have arguably made it worse. My immune system has been doing two jobs. It has been recovering from daily exercise and fighting an infection at the same time. Neither job gets full attention. That is a hard thing to hear when your whole routine is built on showing up daily.

I will not pretend I enjoyed the answer. I do think it is the honest one, and this diary only has value if I record honest answers.

The treatment plan

The advice is practical:

A saline sinus rinsing kit, to flush the nasal cavity. I expect that to be unpleasant.

A nasal spray, usually used for hay fever, to reduce the inflammation.

A decongestant nasal spray, which I can use for a maximum of one week.

Rest. If you are reading this with sinusitis and no daily streak to protect, rest. Give your immune system the full opportunity to fight. In my experience this is a stubborn condition, and I would not wish it on anyone.

Why the timing hurts

I have come out of a broken foot only recently. From the incident to running at near-normal levels again took the best part of 16 weeks. I was building distance towards marathon season. I had a holiday with my family in the February half term and wanted to return to my home workouts and eat well.

Sinusitis arrived and took those plans apart. When I feel ill, I eat badly and skip the extra training. One setback becomes three. The injury was a different kind of problem. A broken foot is visible and has a recovery timeline. An illness like this has neither.

The tension I am sitting with

A streak asks for consistency. A body that is fighting an infection asks for rest. Those two things pull in opposite directions, and I am not going to tidy that up for the sake of a neat conclusion.

What I take from the GP is that the cost of pushing on is real. I now know that from a medical professional, not from my own guess. The question in front of me is how to protect the streak without extending the illness. I do not have a finished answer today.

The mission behind the miles

I run daily to attempt the ultimate ultramarathon: the distance of a lap of the world, 40,075km, completed run by run on consecutive days. Barefoot style, vlogging every day, to raise £1M for children's causes including Great Ormond Street and BBC Children in Need.

As of today I have covered 16,221.87km. That leaves 23,853.13km. The plan runs for roughly 16.5 years in total, which means this sinusitis is a small part of a long road. A long road is exactly why I need to look after the body that carries it. A streak that ends because I ignored a three-week infection helps no child.

I will keep the diary honest. If that means a few more vlogs about illness, I apologise in advance. Talking through these weeks helps me get through them, and I hope the honesty helps someone else who is in the same position.

If you have had sinusitis

Tell me what helped you. How long did yours take to clear? Did you train through it, or did you stop? I would value your experience in the comments.

If you believe in the mission, subscribe to the channel, share the episode and follow along on the next kilometres. More people watching means more people who hear about the cause, and that is why I do this every day.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/86-ihWEHIcY