Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Exercise Log for July 2007

This month I completed 57.2km in 13 sessions and just over 7hrs of exercise.

Week 27 2007: 3 Sessions - 12km 1hr35
Week 28 2007: 3 Sessions - 12km 1hr31
Week 29 2007: 3 Sessions - 14,2km 1hr52
Week 30 2007: 3 Sessions - 14km 1hr47
Week 31 2007: 1 Session  - 5km 37mins

Pretty chuffed with this, but like I said in my previous posts, I'm going to go up to 5km a session and not increase my distance  until after September.

I might add some shorter sessions in between, in the mornings, but only when it gets warmer :P

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The plan for August and September

I noticed yesterday that when I, by accident, decreased my running interval to 40 seconds instead of 45, I found the run much easier. Whether this is actually due to the difference in interval time or not I'm not sure, it's possible that the route was just easier or shorter. But it gave me an idea.

If I increase my rest intervals, it should make my run easier because I have more time to recover from intervals running. But this doesn't necessarily mean I will complete the distance in a shorter time. If I can run faster in the running intervals that will most likely make up for time spent walking. So what I plan to do is play catch up with my intervals. 

For the mean time, I will always keep my rest periods longer than my running intervals. But if I up my rest interval by 30 seconds I will spend the next week or two catching up to it with my running interval. So for instance on Monday I will set my rest interval to 80 seconds. My current running interval is between 40 and 45 seconds, I will increase this 5 seconds at a time, until I don't feel comfortable anymore and then I will increase my rest interval again.

At some stage I must get to a point where I can decrease this rest period, but for now it's here to stay.

But there is another part to this "plan" at the moment I am doing 14km per week, because I prefer to keep my Wednesday session a 4km session. My last 4km session will be next Wednesday... except for our monthly 4km time trials... then I will only run 5kms for the whole of August and September. Building pace and playing around with the intervals as described above.

In September I will take part in two 5km fun runs, one on Sat 1, at Waterkloof airforce base and I will be in Cape Town for the Spar Ladies race on 9 September... so if anyone wants to join me, feel free :) I already know of 1 person for whom it is compulsory to do the Ladies race.

Anyone have a wig and skirt for me? :P Note to self remember my cycling shorts!!

Since May

Thanks to my Polar S610i and Polar's Precision Performance Software, I have lots of recorded data about my training sessions, that's how I can post stuff like energy usage and average heart rate. But considering we are coming to the end of July and I want to add a summarized monthly report, I need to post what I have done so far.

I started running again at the beginning of May, well actually the last Monday of April but we will leave that one out. Why did I start again? I had been cycling to work three times a week from late Jan/early Feb, but it got too cold to cycle in the mornings and I needed to do some exercise. Add to that, the crazed drivers on the roads who just don't see you or respect that you are made of flesh and bone and their cars made of sheet metal and impact bars! One more consideration is that if I fall off my bike I'm not only likely to sustain injury like anyone else, but with the anti-clotting medication I am on, I could bleed really badly, externally OR internally... so although it is more difficult for me, I think running is a safer option.

So here are the weekly stats since 1 May:
Week 18 2007: 2 Sessions - 3.6km 29mins
Week 19 2007: 3 Sessions - 7.0km 55mins
Week 20 2007: 3 Sessions - 7.9km 61mins
Week 21 2007: 2 Sessions - 6.0km 45mins
Week 22 2007: 3 Sessions - 8.6km 65mins
Week 23 2007: 3 Sessions - 9.9km 1hr15
Week 24 2007: 3 Sessions - 12km 1hr25
Week 25 2007: 2 Sessions - 5.6km 40mins
Week 26 2007: Nothing, I was on holiday in Madagascar... got some flak for not doing anything from the people at RW4L.

May and June add up to about 60km run in... well quite a few hours.

The rest is in July and I will blog about that after Monday's session.

Week 30 2007 Exercise Log

This week I ran/walked 14km in 1hr47.

Monday 23 July 2007
Distance: 5km
Total time: 39:31
Intervals: 45/50
Pace: 7:54 min/km
Average HR: 135 bpm
Energy used: 2039 kJ
Route:

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Distance: 4km
Total time: 31:09
Intervals: 45/50
Pace: 7:47 min/km
Average HR: 133 bpm
Energy used: 1570kJ
Route:

Friday 27 July 2007

Distance: 5km
Total time: 37:02
Intervals: 40/50
Pace: 7:24 min/km
Average HR: 132 bpm
Energy used: 1855
Route:

Weight: 74kg

If you have been receiving multiple emails about posts, my appologies. I have added 2 new stats since my week 29 exercise log, intervals and weight. Weight is pretty self explanatory. The interval stat is in the form X/Y where X is the time I run and Y is the time I walk, I continue doing this for the entire run.

Friday, July 27, 2007

More about how I got here... and thanks

Doing this whole blog thing was quite a thing for me, and I've been thinking about it all week long. In my first post How I got here I mentioned most of what has happened to me with regards my heart and how it affects how I exercise. But there were some things I forgot to mention.

I'd like to thank all my friends and family for all the help and support they gave me during my convalescence. I had a wonderful core of friends, from university and before (you know who you are), who were always willing to help me out or come visit me when I needed to go for a procedure. I had friends who were at UCT Medschool at the time and would come visit me while I awaited a procedure at GSH. Thanks for understanding that I couldn't do all the things I used to do. Thanks for all the notes I copied from people more diligent than me :P

My sister was living in Cape Town some of the time and I remember waking up to her a few times... not to mention being told we were having a conversation for the second time as the anaesthetic wore off. My Uncle was also always keen to help me out when I needed it.

So what kind of things did they do to me? Besides regular INR blood tests, ECG's, Echocardiograms (heart ultrasounds) and chest Xrays? I went for two or three cardioversions, which were almost exactly like what you see on ER when they use the paddles on someone in cardiac arrest. The put a conductive gel on your chest and you get two nice circles of light burns all the way around where the paddles were, most of the energy is passed directly through the skin but some of it still manages to burn. Apparently I was awake through all of this, they gave me an amnesiac, I'm not sure if this is the right term for a drug that induces temporary amnesia. I've had some interesting discussions about whether this is humane or not...but I say if I can't remember it then it's all good. As long as the post-op pain was in the correct places.

All these cardioversions were an attempt to put my heart back in sinus rhythm. I was also put on a nasty drug temporarily which helps with getting someone with an arrhythmia get back into sinus rhythm. The possible side effects were quite nasty, ranging from your skin becoming very sensitive to scarring of the lung tissue, for those of you who are medics I'm referring to Amioderone. Although after all these procedures I did temporarily go back into sinus rhythm it was never for any length of time. and I am still not in sinus rhythm.

Another attempt at fixing this problem was an operation that I can't remember the name of, I think it was an angiogram. They made an incision in the crease between my thigh and groin and inserted a catheter into my femoral artery. This was pushed all the way up until the end was in my heart. Through all this I was wide awake! It was when the doctor started doing "pacing exercises" (I think they stimulate your heart artificially with electrical pulses from inside) that I stopped him and said I was REALLY uncomfortable... drugs :D . He then continued and cauterized some of the nerve pathways in my heart, in an attempt to fix the rhythm problem. I'm not too sure about the technicalities but this is how I understood it. But once again the procedure was unsuccessful.

So that's where I am, my cardiologist decided that my quality of life was good enough to stop the attempts and to just manage it properly from here. He told me a heart transplant was a bad idea because you trade one set of problems for another and that my heart as it is is too good to be replaced... so here I am :)

For the next post, sometime next week I will go into why I say "rediagnosed" in my header, or profile, can't remember which... more history :)

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The undefined plan

So I don't really have a plan yet about how I'm going to do this half marathon, or how I will train to do it, or which of the many half marathons on the calendar I will make my first. I will probably try to make the first one at sea level, as this should make it easier for me. The plan at the moment is just to get as fit as possible and increase the distance I am able to run, slowly, as I get fit enough to complete longer distances. I would also like to start taking part in races again on weekends, soon I hope to start doing some of the 5km fun runs around Gauteng. But I'm sure the plan will get more definite soon.

Week 29 2007 Exercise Log

This week I ran/walked 14.2km in 1hr52.

Stats according to my Polar as follows:
Monday 16 July 2007
Distance: 5.2km
Total time: 42.31
Pace: 8:10 min/km
Average HR: 133 bpm
Energy used: 510kcal
Route: Prestige

Wednesday 18 July 2007
Distance: 4km
Total time: 31:22
Pace: 7:50min/km
Average: 132bpm
Energy used: 376kcal
Route: Mackenzie

Friday 20 July 2007
Distance: 5km
Total time: 38:44
Pace: 7:44min/km
Average: 133bpm
Energy used: 467kcal
Route: Boys high

The routes are really for my reference, they are the routes with marked distances used by Run Walk For Life people to train on.

Running when you are me

So because I have reduced cardiac capacity it is really difficult for me to run for a long time. I can't push myself too hard because I get faint and start feeling ill. A few years back I bought myself a Polar heart rate monitor. I use it not only to keep track of my heart rate, but also to help me interval train. At the moment, I can comfortably run for 5km if my intervals are set to 40 seconds running 50 seconds walking. Every week I increase this running time depending on how I am feeling. The confusion comes in about when to increase the distance I am running? Is it better to work on distance, or work on a pace goal first and once I have achieved this then increase the distance? I still have to work out a strategy about how to do that...I've read "regular" beginners training guides and they want you to run for 2min and then walk for 2min... I can't do that, everything has to change. Heartrate related training programs also don't work because my heartrate doesn't vary much, because of my medication. When I'm exercising it usually varies between 130 and 140, when it does increase above that it usually jumps to about 240 which I believe is my monitor picking up atrial beats... and usually means I'm pushing way too hard

But I think the interval training works well and at the moment I am running/walking 5km in just under 40mins, which I don't think is too shabby. I think I will stick to 5km for some time as I feel a 35-40min exercise session is good for me at the moment, any less and I feel a bit like I didn't do enough, any more and I'm exhausted. I was running a bit faster when I was in Bergvliet but I'm sure I can get there again.

How I got here

I was at the end of my second year at UCT studying a four year mechatronics engineering degree, I had spent the passed two years working hard and playing hard. Enough time was spent at the normal student activities of getting as drunk as possible, as often as possible and doing stupid things. I was living on the third floor of yellow block at Kopano Residence (awesome place). Anyway, I was experiencing what doctors would probably call "exercise intolerance". As a 19/20 year old I would struggle to walk the 1 or so kilometers up hill to campus. Two years of doing it everyday hadn't helped my fitness, I didn't even notice, I just assumed I was unfit and that was that.

Then I got bronchitus... well I thought it was bronchitus and so did my GP... at first. I was really ill, coughing and sputtering all the time, it felt like there was continually fluid in my lungs to cough up... and there was. I would need to stop and rest after 1,5 of the the 3 flights of stairs to my res room. After taking 2 courses of antibiotics and returning to the doctor, he was convinced there was something wrong with my lungs, pneumonia or something. He sent me for a chest xray. What he said to me was "Well Mark, theres nothing wrong with your lungs! But see this thing that looks about the size of a white soccer ball? Thats your heart." I was in cardiac failure, my lungs were filling up with fluid because my heart could not pump blood fast enough, it was massively enlarged and not working well at all. I got an appointment with a cardiologist the very next day and was immediately put on some serious diuretics, which I called "Niagra pills" I have never pee'd like a race horse before or after that. I also went on a cocktail of cardiac drugs, I can't remember what they were now, but they made me feel much better, and stronger very quickly. I went to stay with my aunt, Jeannette, so that I didn't have to climb to the third floor and it was much easier to eat a low sodium diet. Many thanks again Jeannette if you ever read this.

There were some changes I had to make to how I lived life, I was terrified of exercise for one. Almost any exertion would make me light headed. I had to change my diet, I was told to eat as little salt as possible, and to drink a limited amount of fluids every day. Due to the expense of seeing a private cardiologist, my parents soon decided that I would have to get public healthcare... we didn't have medical aid. My initial cardiologist refered me to a Dr A. Okreglicki (now Prof), known just as Dr A.O. or A.O. at the Groote Schuur cardiac clinic. The care I got from him was wonderful, even if I had to sit in the waiting room for hours on end, I would always be seen and he was always had the patience to listen to my never ending question... damn engineers :P . He said that I had a Dialated Cardiomyopathy (CMO) and explained to me that my heart was very enlarged and that my atria had stopped working properly. As I understand it, the heart has four chamber, two atria, and two ventricles. In a normal heart the atria beat first and pump blood into the ventricles, the ventricles then pump the blood to the rest of the body. The atria and the ventricles pump in a one to one ratio, beat to beat. Whether my atria started beating out of time before my heart was enlarged or the other way around is uncertain and irrelevant. Mine don't beat in time, my atria beat much faster than my ventricles and hence they are "tired" they aren't making a useful contribution to how my heart works. They are actually just quivering, this means that there is a possibility that blood could stagnate in them and clot. This is obviously a very dangerous situation as a clot could form and be pumped to anywhere, causing an embolism and possibly a stroke.

I was put on warfarin, an anticoagulant to reduce the risk of this happening, but being on warfarin is no fun. It means regular bloodtests to check that your INR is within the correct "therapeutic" limits. I was now terrified of cutting myself and bleeding to death. Not soon after starting on warfarin I had a terrific nosebleed... I phoned everyone I could think of to come take me to hospital, but nobody answered their phone... So I put my head back and let the blood run down the back of my throat and drove myself to the GSH emergency room. The casualty people were very unsympathetic... hehehe... they sat me in a corner and told me to wait, gunshot wounds and stabbing take preference to nose bleeds, why I can't imagine...by the time someone had a chance to see to me, the nose bleed had stopped! They insisted I wait for the results of an INR test. So I needed cautery, if I remember correctly they cauterised both my nostrils, with silver nitrate... the effect of which was that I walked around varsity with very itchy black nostrils for the next week. I remember taking all this a sense of humour that I think sometimes took my friends by surprise, everynow and then I still crack a joke about heart attacks etc. Perhaps they'll post some replies to this effect.

Due to the warfarin and the strain alcohol can put on the heart I was also told not to drink... I think this was the hardest thing... not because I was dependent or because drunken jokes aren't as funny when you are sober. I think normal teetotallers have it easier than me, they can drink as much coke, water or whatever they like all night long. I have a limit on the amount of fluids I can drink so endless non-alcoholic drinks are out of the question... so the inevitable "where's your drink?" is always awkward as I'd prefer not to tell people I have just met "Oh I have a dialated CMO" and then field questions about my health all night long! But "No thank you" also doesn't work too well either, so it's always difficult. More recently I do drink moderately and try to be disciplined enough to nurse a drink for as long as possible.

While I was still at varsity I went to speak to the people at the Sports Science Institute just to ask them what they suggested I do, as it turns out they have a program for people like me... but usually much older than me... the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction and Reversal Programme... as a student, and a unique student, Prof Noakes allowed me to attend for some time, free of charge. I'm not sure how it happened but one of the bean counters got to know about it and I was asked to pay a reduced rate which was still prohinitive and so I stopped. After that I avoided exercise for some time... what happens when you faint from low blood pressure while exercising alone? I did subscribe to Virgin Active for some time, but did not find the environment appealing or motivating, seeing people who were so much more able than you doing things with such obvious ease is very frustrating. Then I read about Run Walk For Life, their program has been designed for people who have been sedentary for some years they start you off very slowly and increase your effort as your body gets used to it. It took me some time to gather up the courage to actually go join... and then they asked me to take a stress ECG, which was very expensive and the medical aid wouldn't pay, but I did it anyway and joined. I was at Bergvliet Run Walk For Life for about 18 months on and off. I had goals, I wanted to run the 2005 Gun Run 10km in under 1 hr... alas that didn't happen, I think I did it in 1hr11mins. But I finished.

After that circumstances changed and I decided I wanted to do the 2006 Argus Cycle Tour. So I concentrated more on cycling which I find much less intense than running. I trained with Romy a good friend, I finished in just over 5hrs, I was really pleased! After that circumstances prevented or discouraged me from concentrating on my exercise goals. I recently moved to Gauteng, to start a dream job. I joined the Brooklyn branch of Run Walk For Life, and am now writing this blog to make a commitment to my exercise goals.