29 August 2016

Back to the ol' drawing board

Got back from my trip on Friday. 13 days/12 nights on the road, and I didn’t miss a run! I kept up with the C25K every second morning, and Thursday ran week 6 day 1.

But then.

It started about halfway through the trip actually, with vertigo at night in my sleeping bag. But it went away.

And then it came back.

On Friday morning—in a wilderness park about 4 hours’ drive from home—I was dizzy and nauseated and running a low fever (exacerbated by trying to pack up sleeping bags in a tent that was equivalent to a sauna). I spent a fair amount of time lying around thinking, how will we get home? Who could I call who would be able and willing to come all the way out here and drive us back? I'm not sure how one would even get near where we were without a car.

Eventually I felt stable enough to try driving (driving is great! You are basically sitting motionless!) and after building up my confidence on the backroads I headed to the highway and got us home. And lay down.

On Saturday after dropping the kid off at his dad’s house, I saw the doctor. First I saw a resident who seemed to be ruling out a stroke based on the various tests she did (“Tell me what side I'm touching” “Frown” “Raise your eyebrows”) and then my regular doc came in and said, “Boy, when you get sick, you really get sick.” Yep.

And then, “It’s probably a virus,” which is right up there with “It’s probably stress,” in the doctor's thesaurus of synonyms for “I don’t know.”

I went home and lay down some more.

In the morning I thought, I wonder where my shoulders are at?

Sure enough, my left shoulder is 2” higher than the right. So I googled “Thoracic Outlet System + Vertigo” and yes, they can be connected. Then I looked up my saviour, Angus the physiotherapist, to see how early I could call Monday morning for an appointment.

Earliest I can get to see him is Thursday morning at 8:30 (he was booked till mid-September, but they had a cancellation), but I will bet a million dollars that he fixes me up perfectly, and this “virus” theory was utter bunk!

08 August 2016

C25K: Week 2 completed

Finished week 2! A friend mentioned that she is doing this too. She is on week 6, where apparently there is a point where you run for fully twice as long as any of the previous runs up to that point. I like to think I have been doing fairly well so far, but I am now a little bit afraid of week 6. So far I have not looked ahead to see what any of the future weeks entail, I wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing? Part of me is tempted to get through the "easy" weeks by doing the runs only 2 times instead of 3 times before moving on to the next level, so I will have more time to work on week 6 (for example) if needed. That may be a completely idiotic idea though.

02 August 2016

C25K: Week 1 completed

Done week 1! I did runs 2 & 3 at my cousin's cottage in the Gatineau hills. Part of me thought, "I could skip run 1/3 and go straight to week 2, since I already did a run before I got the app/earbuds sorted." But I decided against it, due to the nature of the run - on uneven gravel roads rather than paved, and also quite hilly:

Not far, but oh those hills! Ah well, I will tell myself that training at elevation is good for the heart.