My Crazy Heart

I've finally come out and told people that I've been trying to run.  I don't run very fast or very long and I've been struggling a little with how weak and tired I feel while I'm running.  I haven't been gasping for breath or wheezing or anything, but the sensation was kind of like being out of breath.  On Wednesday, just for fun, I took my pulse right after I finished running.  It was 183.  That seemed a little high but I wasn't really sure.

Thursday I went to the doctor for a routine check-up.  I told her I was feeling more out of breath than I thought I should when I run.  She went through a series of questions about my breathing, then she asked about my  heart rate.  I told her what it was, then told her I recently lost a cousin because of an enlarged heart.  She sent me straight to cardiology for an EKG, then to radiology for an x-ray, then had me come straight back to see her.  (By the way, I love my health plan - all this was under the same roof and only took half an hour or so.)  She looked at my EKG print-out and said it looked good, then showed me my x-ray on her monitor and said my heart looked healthy and normal.  Then she ordered a treadmill stress test for the next day.

Friday morning I had my stress test.  I wish I had watched a youtube video of a stress test ahead of time so I would have known what to expect.  I was supposed to fast for 4 hours before the test, which seemed like no big deal because I hadn't been eating breakfast before I run and the test was in the morning.  I just ate dinner as usual on Wednesday then went to the doctor Thursday morning without eating.  That was my first mistake.  I should have gotten up at 5 am and eaten something, or scheduled my test for later in the day.  They were running a little late and by the time I got on the treadmill I hadn't eaten for 16 hours. My next mistake was being afraid to start running.  They kept speeding up the treadmill and I kept walking faster and faster.  I was afraid if I started to run my pace would be off and I'd fall off the treadmill.  You know, kind of like when you step on or off those moving sidewalks at the airport - or am I the only one who almost falls every time?  Anyway, lets just say the test was definitely stressful!  I had to ask to stop which was kind of humiliating.  The nurse practitioner who administered the test said I was too out of shape to run and I should just walk so I didn't stress my heart so much.  I really didn't like her.

Now back to the no breakfast thing for a minute.  I've learned from my own experience that eating dairy products before exercising doesn't work well for me, and from a friend's experience that eating a box of cheeze-its before exercise isn't good either.  Somehow I took that all to mean that I shouldn't eat before I run.  A friend of mine suggested I eat oatmeal before running, so on Saturday that's what I did.

Saturday morning I asked my husband to run with me.  We ran along the creek by our house, which was great because it's too secluded for me to run there alone.  I had oatmeal in my stomach and my new heart monitor strapped to my chest.  It was a warm, beautiful morning.  I set the monitor to beep when my heart rate got above 180, which was really annoying because it beeped the entire 25 minutes I ran.  I maxed out at 194, but was able to hold a conversation with Rick the whole time and I really didn't feel tired.  In fact, I felt amazing!  I think it was the oatmeal.

I ran again this morning, a little longer and still pretty slow.  My heart rate was between 180 and 190.  I didn't feel as good as I did on Saturday, but it was colder with a little bit of rain and wind and that kind of annoyed me. I didn't feel overly exhausted or breathless.  Yep, definitely the oatmeal.

Yes, I was disobeying the orders of that dumb nurse practitioner, but this morning I emailed my doctor and gave her the details of my last two runs.  She then gave me permission to run as long as I slow down to a walk if I feel lightheaded or completely out of breath.  It sounds like a good compromise to me.  For now I'm going to keep using the heart monitor and I'm keeping a journal of how long I run, my heart rate, how I feel, etc.  We'll see if my heart rate lowers as I get in better shape.  It may just be that I have a freakishly fast heart.

C25K Update

I've been torn between documenting my running progress then having to admit failure, and not documenting it then not having a good story to go along with my success.  My fear of public failure has won out so far, so other than a couple brief mentions on this blog I've kept mostly quiet on the subject and only told a few people.  Now that I've had some degree of success I think I can share what I've accomplished.

I started in the middle of October.  (Here's my first post.) The first week wasn't too bad, except that I was so sore after the first day that I hobbled around for a couple weeks.  The second week was a little harder, 6 90-second jogs alternating with walking.  Looking back that sounds so easy, but at the time it definitely wasn't.  Sometime in those first two weeks I read somewhere that it was ok to repeat weeks if you didn't feel comfortable moving up to the next level.  I think that's the only thing that kept me going.  I don't remember which weeks I repeated or how many times I repeated them, but last week (which was somewhere around my 14th week) I was still on the week 5 workout.  The week 5 day 3 assignment was to walk for 5 minutes, run for 20 minutes, then walk for 5 minutes.  Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that!  But last Friday I finally decided to try.  And guess what - it didn't kill me!  It didn't even make my legs sore!  Sure I was out of breath a little, but that's what happens when you run.  This week I did all the week 6 workouts.  Today I ran for 25 minutes.  Monday I'll tackle week 7, which is three more 25-minute runs.  Week 8 is 28-minute runs, week 9 is 30-minute runs, then I'm done with the program and I can do whatever I want, as long as I keep running three times a week.

These are my new friends.  I bought them after meeting my goal of walking / running for three months.  I almost feel like I should name them, but I'm not sure if a pair of shoes gets one name or if each shoe gets its own name.  I hope to spend a couple of good years with these shoes and wear them out.  I can't say I love running.  I don't even really like it.  I might actually hate it while I'm doing it, at least for the first 5 - 10 minutes.  I love the feeling I have when I'm done, though.  When I've accomplished something I didn't think I could do, something I couldn't do a few months ago.  I love that feeling so much that I almost can't wait until Monday, when I get to run again.