As long as you don't have a fever, I think exercise can often help a cold. Especially if you're like me and need exercise in order to sleep well, which of course, helps you get well faster.between 6 and 7 cootie miles. Came down with nasty cooties over the weekend, nasty attitude from mental exhaustion of the end of semester beginning of holiday pressure cooker, nasty emotional regulation from above issues. Attitude improved but cooties got worse.
Ran anyways so that my brain could get cleaned up. Body wasn't into it but tolerated the run, not the ST I had the hubris to try after that (pretty sight i was at the gym hacking up a lung trying to pick up free weights in between coughs and sneezes).
Found a way to motivate myself to run even with sick chilled body (38 degrees felt cold and it never does anymore so fever).
Told myself this was a 'loose rules' run; i could stop any time i wanted to (and needed to every mile or so to blow nose, but otherwise not), go any pace i wanted to, take walking breaks if i wanted, and could turn back at any time. It worked, got me going slowly, slowly, until I got used to the idea.
And I'm loving loose rules. At first I too felt bad about talking walking breaks, but Abide and that thread on ITBS helped convince me the best thing to do was to get my pace up sooner rather than later. Now I love it. If I feel like going a bit faster, I go. If I feel a little tired, I stop. Basically it's fartleks. It's kept me running more or less without ITBS these last two weeks, and my conditioning is improving. Still, I do look forward to the day I can run a decent distance without stopping and without feeling any strain on the ITB band. In the meantime: loose rules!