Tears On The Treadmill

I took this picture today because I got a new 'do... But I'm posting it here so you can see that my cheeks are FINALLY back to normal!
To those on or newly off of Prednisone, hang in there!

I came perilously close to crying on the treadmill last night. Not because I was in pain. Not because I was frustrated. These were tears of victory, of relief, of renewed hope.

A couple of months ago I decided I would participate in the Donate Life 5k in June, and I set a lofty goal. I wanted to jog one full mile of the 5k straight, without walking. In the time since setting this goal, gaining strength and endurance has proven far more difficult than expected. I’ve been pushing myself along, with nearly imperceptible increases in my workouts, but it just wasn’t getting any easier for me. Every trip to the gym was like a game of Russian Roulette, with no ability to predict which work-outs would be decent and which ones would feel terrible.

My best running workouts consisted of me getting on the treadmill for 45 minutes and jogging for three intervals of three minutes each. This got me to three quarters of a mile in three spurts. My plan was to continue gradually increasing my longevity, but something happened on the treadmill last night. When I passed the three-minute mark I felt like I could do another minute, so I kept going. And the same thing happened after four minutes, and five and even six – until I’d jogged seven minutes straight!! I know it doesn’t sound like much, but seven minutes is 230% of my previous best! After walking for about ten minutes to bring my heart rate back down, I was able to run another five minutes straight to round out the full mile.

I was nearly overcome with emotion – not because I had one good workout – but because of what that workout represented: HOPE.

I was told to expect to feel ‘normal’ about six months post-transplant. I still felt very sluggish at that point, and I feared I’d set my expectations too high. Now I see that maybe I was just running a little behind and I’ve turned a real corner here. Alternatively, maybe the iron treatments have caused an increase in my energy. I don’t know. Whatever is responsible for the way I’ve felt this weekend has given me renewed hope – that I can achieve my goal of running a mile straight in June and that I am not finished recovering from this ordeal. I’m just beginning.

2 + 3 + 3 = EIGHT

You know those cars that can go from zero to sixty in like three seconds? For that to happen, the car engine obviously has to react as soon as the gas pedal is depressed. Well, that’s essentially how most people’s hearts work. Your body tells your heart it needs to hustle as soon as you exert yourself, which provides you with the proper physiological support. A transplant recipient’s heart operates more like a little four-cylinder vehicle, which works fine once it’s warm but needs some time to catch up after the gas pedal is pushed. Because some nerves are cut during transplantation, it takes time for my heart to figure out that my body needs it to pick up the pace.

So while most gym-goers hop right on the treadmill or elliptical and pump it up to full speed, I need to start out very slowly and work my way up. I begin walking at a leisurely pace, then increase the speed and introduce increasing amounts of incline to get my heart moving. Because I’m only able to get my heart rate up to about 120 walking (resting is 105), my first episode of jogging is really quite miserable. However, once my heart is beating at between 140 and 155 beats per minute, jogging becomes worlds easier. The trick is to insert the right amount of walking between each jogging spurt so that I get a bit of a rest but maintain the high heart rate.

So what in the world does 2 + 3 + 3 = EIGHT mean? That’s the number of minutes I jogged on Sunday as a part of my most intense post-transplant workout yet! I felt like Rocky afterwards. I slowed my pace a little from earlier jogging efforts per my dad’s sage advice and felt much better and was able to run longer, both in terms of time and distance. I spent 35 minutes on the treadmill with eight total minutes of jogging (two minutes, then three minutes, then another three minutes). My new pace is 12 minutes/mile or 5 mph. Not exactly breaking records, but making progress!

I completed the same amount of time on the treadmill tonight, again with the 2 + 3 + 3 jogging format. However, tonight’s experience was pretty brutal. I know everyone has tough workouts sometimes, but it’s frustrating to have ONE good workout and then a bad one. It’s hard to get myself back into the gym after feeling bad, but I’ll try to keep Sunday’s Rocky workout in my brain instead of today’s crappy one. I know my workouts will become more pleasant as my body gets more and more accustomed to being pushed. It’s just sometimes difficult to transition knowing something into actually doing it.

I have a new goal, which will help keep me motivated. Donate Life New Jersey is holding a 5k run/walk on June 12, and I intend to participate. I intend to RUN. Don’t get too excited, I won’t be ready to run the whole thing by then, but my goal is to run at least a mile straight. Who’s coming with me?