Many of you know by now that I will be doing the Warrior Dash on
August 3rd with my awesome friend Stacy!! I am very excited about this
journey because I have decided to raise money for St. Jude's Children's
hospital in the process. What most of you do not know is truly how
physically hard this could be
on me. Let me tell you, if I had to run it today I would be lucky to come
in under two hours - unless I end up skipping obstacles after many tries - but
that is not my intention. Let me try to paint a picture for you, but
first, realize this is a picture I am truly only learning the layers to myself.
I am not even sure where to begin because
I have been only given fragments of pieces myself. The first piece I can
remember being revealed is when I went for speech therapy in the 9th
grade. I had nodules on my vocal cords
that the doctor felt therapy could help.
I already had surgery on my vocal cords when I was only 5 years old so I
have a raspy voice because of it. More
surgery would mean more scarring to the vocal cords and an even further change
in my voice. Anyway, during speech
therapy I was told I do not breathe correctly, only using the top third of my
lungs completely and the middle section only somewhat. The muscles around the deepest valves to my
lungs are shriveled up doing nothing. At
the time I did some vocal exercises and breathing exercises for awhile, which
help enough to wear down the size of my nodules and no surgery was needed. I was encouraged to keep on with the
breathing exercises so that my muscles would not return to their shrivel
status, but in a short time they were forgotten.
When I was 18 years old I joined a gym. I was a decent weight for my height, mostly
because I was on my own and did not eat much of anything. I was only about 125 lbs. back then. I remember having a free fitness test done
and it was commented on how very low my muscle tone was. Joining another gym when I was 20 years old,
and still then, I was again told my muscles tone to fat ratio was way off balance
for my weight. I never had money for a
personal trainer so I never really understood what this meant and quickly
forgot about it.
Last year in April I joined group training with a personal
trainer. This is the YMCA’s program to
gives you the benefit of a personal trainer at a lower cost. When I went through my personal set up with
weight, measurements and the whole deal, I also got this machine which read my
body fat percentage. While my BMI was in
the overweight category, this machine showed I had such little muscle that I
was actually in the obese category.
In May of last year,
seeing my new primary care doctor and trying to get the medication I liked best
for my ADD, she insisted I have an EKG done first. Well, she did not like the pattern in my EKG
and sent me to a cardiologist. My
cardiologist was very impressed that my doctor even caught the glitch in my
heartbeat. It is there, but my heartbeat
looks the exact same every time. It is
an always present imperfect pattern. It
ended up being diagnosed as a short PR (pulmonary rate). Really he said it is Wolff–Parkinson–White
syndrome (WPW) but he will not put that on my file because it tends to freak
other doctors out. The good news that I
am asymptomatic – not showing any symptoms.
After doing a stress test and getting my heart rate up over 200 beats
per minute, my doctor noted how much better my heart and lungs performed after
the stress test than prior to it. So
what I am supposed to do is get my heart rate over 85% of max almost daily to
keep my health up and stay asymptomatic.
I have attempted
many times to start exercise programs, and have always come up short. I get so tired, so exhausted, that when I
begin an exercise program I usually come home and want to sit for hours and do
nothing. Actually, anytime I do anything
for a couple of hours, even running errands, I come home exhausted and want to
sit and do nothing.
I recently joined a
class at Running Fit in Ann Arbor called “Running 101.” Having the class made me accountable. The first week I wanted to quit so many
times. I sit on the pavement and nearly
cry. My muscles lock up and I have to
stop and stretch them out often. Having
this class and having to push myself beyond where I normally give up, I have
realized how much the lack of oxygen and low muscle development effect me. The good news is by the start of week two I
was feeling so much better!! Instead of
constantly being exhausted and wanting to sit around, I was actually getting
some energy after I exercised 5 of 7 days.
Then I took two
days off and it was like starting over.
I was mentally reminded that I have to be consistent with my exercising
and breathing or my muscles go right back to where they have always been. Maybe after months of building up my muscles I
will be able to take a couple of days off, but not now. They are a shriveled up
mass and want to stay that way.
Of course right
when I started to do well I have been hit with a yucky virus. Sinus infection, coughing, the runs (and not
the running I should be doing) and it has gone on and on… I have not run in
five days now. It once again will be
like starting over. I am really bummed
to have missed the week three class too!!
It was the best one on stretches!
So when it comes to my fitness, I feel like I am constantly over coming
hurdles. But I know for my overall
health, and to keep my WPW asymptomatic, it will be worth it to constantly
fight them.
So I have this
crazy race, this “Warrior Dash” scheduled only five weeks from now. I have a long way to go on building up some
arm strength if I want to be able to pull myself up or pull up a friend on any
of those obstacles! But I finally
realize that if I give myself just 20 minutes a day, and get past the first
week, I will get the energy I need to keep going. I am just not sure how to deal with getting
sick and I surely need to get better before I can truly restart now!
No comments:
Post a Comment