I went for a run this morning and felt pretty great! Re-did C25K Week 6 Day 1, ran all I was meant to run, went farther (4.5 km) and felt faster!
I did have a bit of a twinge in my shoulder/neck near the end, but thought, I can do this!
Now my neck hurts, and all I want is to go lie down.
Cannot wait for my next physio appointment - a week tomorrow!
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!
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.
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.
Well I got my phone/earbuds sorted and ran with the app this morning.
Now, you might say, "Aren't you only supposed to train every second day, and work other parts of your body on the off-days?"
And, you would be right.
Yesterday was comparatively easy, and I woke up feeling fine today - not sore the way you usually do if you've really worked your muscles - so I thought, "Why not?" Especially since I wanted to "catch up" as I hadn't used the app for day one, so I wanted to "re-do" it. And yesterday I did more jogging than was actually necessary - it's meant to be 8 x 60-second runs on the first day, and I think I did that plus 4 x 90-second runs - so I thought it would be a piece of cake.
And it was fine!
Except now my legs are really sore.
I signed up for a 5k!
The last time I ran a 5k was in 2010, a fundraiser for the Brain Tumour Foundation after my mother died of cancer. This time, it’s a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Foundation, because a friend had “triple negative” (a very aggressive type) but thankfully survived! Here’s her story:
So, I bought some new running shoes, and this morning started the “Couch to 5k” regime. Or, actually, a version thereof, because I don’t know where the earbuds for my phone are, so I just alternated running 60 seconds/walking 90 seconds eight times, then running 120 seconds/walking 90 seconds 4 times. Good enough for day one. Need to get my phone sorted though so I can do it properly!
The best part for me was that I did not cough once on my run! My lungs have been terrible this year - my darling son brought home all kinds of germs in the winter, and I couldn’t take sick days when I needed to because there was too much work to do and I was the only one able to do it. Two rounds of antibiotics when they thought I had pneumonia; then the diagnosis changed to pleurisy (what is that you ask? If you remember The Glass Menagerie, it’s the illness that Laura had in high school which caused her to miss months of classes—then called “pleurosis” which led to the nickname “blue roses”).
Ha, I coughed just now because I am writing about not coughing I guess!
I was fine for a while after I eventually recovered, but the first week of summer vacation, my darling son again brought home a nasty bug, and I can’t seem to shake the cough that came with it. Partly, I think, due to the terrible humidity that has cloaked the city in a veil of smog and pollen.
So I am thrilled that I was able to run and breathe this morning! The sun was just starting to beat down upon the city in my final stretch home; next time I will try to get an earlier start.
Okay, after the worst winter ever—sick and coughing for two and a half months, two rounds of anbiotics that did nothing, an eventual diagnosis of pleurisy—I am getting back at it!
I really missed my walks. When I was sick and breathless, I could barely make it from room to room let alone walk a mile and a half to work. So I am thrilled to be walking again, especially now that spring has sprung. Birds! Flowers! Heavenly!
Current routine is walk to work, walk one and a half or two miles at lunch, and then walk home. Today I did more than five miles in my raincoat!
I am also pleased to say that, even after months of not doing it, I had no trouble doing 30 situps this morning. To think when I started, five and a half years ago, I had to really struggle to do 20—mostly couldn’t. I may not be perfect, but I have indeed come a long way.
