lost and gained

this week has been a tough one. the beginning of the week saw me losing my lunch, repeatedly. so much so, in fact that i was sent home from work. unknown cause, but lots of possibles crossed off.

this week also brought the loss of the father of a very dear friend of mine. he is so eloquently verbal, an amazing writer. he is logging his journey through this time, and it's incredibly hard to read. right now he and his amazing wife are across the country, making it even harder for us back home. i'm such a fixer. i have to be doing something, i like to take charge and get things done in times of crisis. this particular crisis has brought us fixers together. i've made friends with another amazing woman, who's the head haucho of fixers it seems. we've/she's come up with an actual table of people in charge of meals once they return from the east coast, covering the next week. this is stressful, because when we're in crisis mode, we don't like to eat, and we don't like company. 'we' in this case refers to me. i have a feeling they feel the same way. i worry that we'll be bombarding them with food and company when it's the last thing they will need and/or want, but we all have our own way of grieving i guess. i'm just truly blessed to be counted in this group tasked with helping them through this time, something i never even knew i could feel lucky about.

another friend is watching his mother begin another battle with cancer. he's normally a very energetic, outgoing, in-your-face kind of person, and this morning at breakfast with he and his daughter, he was downright lethargic. he doesn't ask for help, and completely shuts down in crisis time. 2 things i can't deal with. so i'm at a complete loss on how to actually help him.

the 'gained' section comes now. i've not been able to train all week. i've been hurling my socks up, or sleeping, or working. so today i knew i needed something. i didn't feel like hauling out my trainer, and i didn't feel like hitting the pool (it's pretty cool today and our pool is in the shade). so a run it was. and boy, what a run it was. they call it a breakthrough workout i believe. left me in tears at the end. i'd say that was some sort of breakthrough. in working back into running from a helluva (injured) summer, i've been doing 10/1s or 5/1s or 3/2s run/walk. today, i didn't even do a warmup, i just wanted to get straight into it. i walked this huge hill by pierce college, because, well, i'm not a total idiot. other than that, i ran. and ran and ran. it wasn't a fast one, about a minute slower than my goal pace for right now/vineman (as it stands currently), but i also have had any pure run workouts yet. i've so needed a workout like this. i love running. i love being out there, no one can bother me, i can just completely zone out and listen to my music. or think things through. or both. amazing workout. yay me.

asthma

asthma sucks. i went out for another run today, and it sucked too. because of my asthma. it was about 11 degrees colder and about 4 hours earlier than friday's run, so i'm not sure what i was really expecting. but lemme tell ya, it was damn cold out there. cold and very windy. so much so, in fact, that my 'run' wasn't. it was a walk. and not even a fast one at that. so see - asthma sucks.

since i was diagnosed at the age of 2, i've been able to fine tune things when i'm having an asthma attack. when i was little, as is the common reaction, i'd panic. this doesn't help. actually, it's the worst reaction possible. now that i'm older, i liken it to scuba diving. when you have your very first scuba lesson, they will take you into very shallow water first. they'll tell you what to do, how to breathe, and even warn you that you might panic. you bite down on the plastic and go under. and for the first 5 minutes or so, you fight your body's natural fight-or-flight response. you have to talk yourself down and concentrate on breathing through your mouth. those first five minutes are similar to an asthma attack. you know your triggers, you find yourself in the midst of one or two or all of them, you feel your lungs shutting down, and you have to fight to remain calm. in my younger days with ignorant coaches, my mom used to scream at them to go run a mile with a paper bag over their head to see what it feels like. this is a pretty good analogy as well, especially if you have the intelligence to realize the oxygen within said bag is quite limited.

the annoying part about today was that my body itself was cold, but my lungs were completely shut down. it feels like you're in a girdle, and you can't expand your chest cavity enough to get a deep breath. one of my triggers obviously is cold weather. it takes my lungs about 20 minutes to become acclimated in such cold weather. and maybe 'acclimated' is a misnomer, seeing as how my lungs never become fully functional again while still in that environment. for example, today, even after my 20 min, i wasn't able to run. i tried. knocking my HR up in the midst of an asthma attack never goes well.

asthma is one of the 'air-trapping' 'reactive airway' diseases, under the same umbrella as emphysema and COPD. it's counterintuitive. the alveoli (the end of the road as far as the lungs are concerned, the place where gas exchange occurs) fill up with oxygen, to the point of becoming bloated and can't take on anymore. the airways inflame and constrict. what you feel is that you can't get a deep breath, you can't breathe period. this is bad, because you end up breathing faster as compensation, which causes you to even further air-trap in hyperventilation. what i tell my pediatric patients is that they should try to blow up a balloon, or try to blow out a candle a few feet in front of them. the goal being to express all that trapped air. my dad, who used to be an avid marathoner, told me when i was little that while running, and especially for me and my asthma issues, i should try to make my breaths out last more steps than the breaths in. the reason this particular trick didn't work today was because cold is one of my triggers. so regardless of how much control i had over my breathing, i was still breathing in very cold air. cold is a vaso/bronchoconstrictor. i was screwed the minute i stepped out the door. evidently my time in alaska taught me nothing about cold air.

so the lesson we learned today, boys and girls, is that charrissa's lungs have a very definite temperature restriction (pun intended), and it lies somewhere between 45 and 34 degrees. good to know.

CUIDADO from colorado springs

title explanation: i'm down in colorado springs with dave, and on my run today along Fountain Creek there were a bunch of signs posted everywhere about the dangers of falling into this creek, which was only about 2 feet deep. granted, yes, with runoff i'm sure it can get a little more dicey, but i still found the plethora of signage comical. more on my run later. first:

update on medical issues: the great Dr. Mandelbaum and his minions at SMOG have come up with a plan for my knee. for the time being. he says/thinks/knows i will have to have surgery. i have new calcification now, and there’s a definite mess inside the joint. however, to buy me some time, the current plan is to inject my knee with my own Platelet Rich Plasma and synthetic synovial fluid. i’ve already tried the synthetic fluid once before, but it didn’t make much of a difference. since my fitness is much more refined now, i’m hoping it works. as a nurse i was very interested in the PRP injections, hadn't heard about it and i think it's absolute genius. they literally take blood out of your arm, spin it down in a centrifuge, and inject the concentrated plasma back into the joint. very cheap procedure, and supposedly somewhat effective. as for my heart, my labs came back normal (anemia notwithstanding). my Echo also came back normal, so far as i know. with docs, no news is good news. so, we’re pressing on. may get a 24 hour round or 2 of halter monitor wear, but that’ll be decided next week.

i’ve found it very difficult lately to get myself started with training. i’ve had a total lack of motivation. it feels like life is yet again a roller coaster, and there’s no one around to tell me when the hell to get off. it’s getting very frustrating. and i know at some point i’m just going to have to take charge and get started. today, the minute i landed in denver, i wanted to go for a run. and i was excited. so, an hour after making it to colorado springs i was out on the road. had an awesome 1:30 run along a creek here by the hotel. the path was mostly dirt, which was awesome, and it was a constantly changing terrain, up and down and up and down. i’m back to crap running again, my HR is through the roof regardless of speed. and i still only have one speed. i’m alternating run/walk so as to maintain a decent HR average overall, and for once i found myself losing track of time. and this was during the run portions, that’s never happened. i’m usually watching my watch like a hawk. my goal this weekend is to completely relax. i’m on vacation. i want to workout and have a good time at it. hence my 1:30 run. my other goal of the weekend is to ensure my workout load this weekend carries over into this next week. i need to get the ball rolling. and dammit, i’m going to make it happen. i still can’t believe at the end of this year, i hopefully will be an ironman. the swim and run aren’t anything that bother me, it’s all that damn marathon at the end. so, mentally, i’m avoiding it, still. denial is quite powerful, ask any mental health professional. vineman is coming, all to quickly for my liking. i have to run a half marathon. dave recently did the LA half marathon, and stuck to his goals. i’m still so envious of people who can run. especially those who make it look so easy, and are obviously having a good time. i'm sooo tired of saying stuff like that too. i want to be one of those people i'm so jealous of! so, i'm going to make it happen. this is going to be the season i become a 'runner'. i've decided. it's official. so there.

race report - culver city 5k

had my first run race this past weekend. the great town of culver city 5k. with tim bomba on the mic announcing to the world (ok, maybe just the small population of culver) that i was 'single and lookin'. excellent. i was lucky enough to run into max before the race got started, and he gave me a couple pieces of great advice. 1) don’t look at my watch, and if i do, only look at my HR, not the time. sweet. great advice. especially considering that while he was talking, i looked down at my watch, my HR was 101. on the start line. with 5 minutes left before the gun was to go off. we hadn’t even started the ‘group stretch’. hmmmmm. ok and 2) he said if this was my ‘fun run’ then it needed to be fun, i needed to find what made running fun for me. whoa there buddy. that’s where i draw the line. bless his heart, he was pretty damn convincing about that. almost. you see, to me ‘fun run’ is an oxymoron. screw oxymoron, it’s just this exponential idea, a witty play on words akin to 'happenstance' or 'open relationship'. ‘fun run’ is something kids do in the park while they’re chasing the damn ice cream truck. for me, there is no ‘fun run’ (although many an ice cream truck have i chased in my day, i must admit...none recently though. parents tend to freak the fuck out when you knock their kid over after the ice cream man announces he has ‘one bomb pop left!!!’. hey, you snooze you lose as far as i’m concerned. survival of the fittest. teach little Johnnie how to run faster, or get the fuck out of the way). i hate running. HATE it. it’s not fun. i never seem to relax, can’t ever get into a groove, can’t ever feel smooth or comfortable. when i started my training, i thought my complex was related to the inevitable arrival of my asthma attack(s), a regular occurrence in my younger days. now, as long as i take my meds, my attacks are few and far between (makes sense to the nurse in me, but it still surprises me). so now i’m trying to find out why i still dislike it so. is it because in the back of my mind, i know that with every mind-numbing step, i’m just putting myself that much closer to my next knee surgery? possibly, but that’s another post. 

run went well. didn’t actually time my splits, just watched my HR (climb and climb and climb btw). my average splits per my overall time - those were still the fastest miles i’ve run to date. it was great to see us TNS folks all together. eve even came out to support me/TNS, i don’t think she even knows what her presence did for me that day. my goals: well i had one time goal per coach, which i’m still a little embarrassed to actually publish here, but i beat it. my other goal was to run the entire thing. there’s where i get upset with myself. the minute i signed up for the race, i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt (what does that even mean) that i would run the whole thing. in fact, i even remember telling my mother a month ago that i was perfectly ok with this race being the farthest i’d run to date without walking. i already knew it. what makes me so angry with that is, if i knew it back then, why the hell didn’t i just do it back then? why did i put that much pressure on myself to wait until a fucking race to pull that out? i could’ve done it a month ago. i know that now. but a month ago, it wasn’t in my head. it’s not that i didn’t think i couldn’t do it back then, it was more that i was perfectly happy putting it off until race day. ridiculous. irritates me beyond belief because i KNOW for a fact that i’m holding myself back. why do i do that?????