Saturday, March 7, 2009

34 days and I must admit I'm feeling rather despondent

I skipped Wednesday's run and tried to rest as much as possible in the hope that maybe my heart rythm would fix itself. Afterall I haven't really changed what I've been doing that seemed to encourage it to do this in the first place. I'm still trying to watch my diet, exercising regularly, trying to sleep lots. So physically/mechanically I can't see that there is much of a difference in my heart from last week to this week. Perhaps a rest would have helped it get back to where it should be.

Last night's run proved otherwise, whats worse, it seems to me that whatever mode my heart is in now, it gives me less capacity to exert myself than I had last year! Yesterday the chosen route for the club was Premier which is very tough, so we decided to do an easier route, Lynwood. It is a gentle downhill and then the same gentle uphill back. I was mostly fin on the way down but my monitor kept registering 220+ on the way back at the end of my running interval. In the end I gave it up as a bad job and walked home.

It is really soul destroying to have something this fantastic dangled in front of you for a few weeks and then just as quickly removed! I'm pretty upset about it, I'm angry with the world, angry with the person I blame for me being in this position in the first place and I guess if I believed in a benevolent god, I'd be angry with he/she/it too. Lucky for me I don't really... but thats a discussion for another day.

For a few days I allowed myself to start believing that I was on the way, if not to a full recovery, then to a state a lot closer to having a normal heart. A place where I wouldn't have to be quite so hard on myself about eating, sleeping, drinking, exercising. But now it feels like I'm not back to square one, I'm back to square -10! Enough lamenting.

I'll just have to work with this again and see what can be done with more regular training. I did go for my long run this morning. 13km in 1hr47, that is too slow 8:20 gets me to 21 in 175 mins which is 2hr55. Thats cutting it a bit fine, and considering this run was on a relatively flat route, I doubt I could keep it up anyway! None-the-less this mornings run wasn't as bad as yesterday's. I guess I'm already adjusting to this new setup and it will just take a little more time to get fully used to it and to see how far I can push myself. You can see from the graph below that i am back to running set intervals, where the times are 45 seconds running and 1:30 walking.

What is curious though is that there were times when I saw my hr go to 220 on my watch, but there is no record of it in the data. Perhaps this is a good sign, but who knows, until I've spoken to the cardiologist on Monday I won't really know what to think. Hopefully he can fit me in somewhere for an emergency appointment. What might really get me down is if he says that he now thinks I SHOULDN'T do the 2 Oceans. That would be heart breaking, excuse the pun. I should stop second guessing, it clearly gets me into trouble!

I suppose for those of you who read my blog, it was becoming a bit of a monotonous happy fest. Nothing like some arythmia to keep the drama going :P Hey look, it seems like I haven't completely lost my sense of humour!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

At the end I think the readers just want you to achieve what you can!! I think it is a fascinating experiment you are running and I think you should give yourself a break... maybe your heart is just tired... you have been working a lot harder than ever in your life!! Even healthy heart people need a break from time to time!!

Marli

Mark said...

Thanks Marli

It's just that my goal is so close! I would be really happy to take a break in 30 days time! It's so frustrating that this has happened just before the race!

Anonymous said...

I can understand... you have worked amazingly hard!! Your body is testing whether you are really doing this for its benefit or your own benefit... I really do understand that you have a major goal that will be very meaningful to you... but remember why you are doing it in the first place!!

Sorry if I sound preachy... I am not very good with the sensitivit thing. I think you did an amazing job so far and you don't have to feel bad if somehow your goal posts change or if you choose to take things a bit slower.

Hang in there buddy...

Marli