Not quite a mission

Over the passed few months I've gotten really unfit. Gym is really boring, but necessary. It was easier when there were people to talk to. So I've decided once more to cycle to work 3 times a week, it helps that I can now shower at the work gym. I had wanted to do the 94.7 but have a clash so I can't.

I'm also going to go to gym twice a week to do weights. I'll see if I'm alive by the end of the week, but I'd also like to swim once a week, so that would have to be on Saturday morning I guess... a few laps of the pool at gym.

I started the cycling yesterday, to work it took me 32 mins, the return trip was torture as I seem to live quite high up. That took me 45 mins, but I felt pretty good afterward. Of course when I got into bed at 9:30, which is earlier than usual for me, it was lights out. On the brighter side, waking up at 5:45 isn't so hard anymore.

I want to say things like "I hope I can keep it up", but I should be saying things like "I will keep this up". I just need to find another tangible goal to work towards, but losing 8kg is good enough for now. When I ran the Two Oceans I weighed about 74kg's. Now I weigh 82!! When I get back to that weight, I'll think of riding the Argus or doing the 94.7 again. So now it's going to back to boring blogging of exercise sessions I'm afraid.

Yes I did go to gym this morning, and I feel good for it. I only did two sets of my "full body" workout, I'll take that up to three next week, when I feel stronger.

Go ahead!!!

I should be my own cardiologist :P ... everything that I thought about my current state was confirmed. My ejection fraction is up again from 42 - 46, theres no denying it now. My heart is in normal sinus rythm... explains the "normal" reaction to exercise. He thinks I'm now on too much medication because my heartrate when they took my ECG was 46bpm, so he's decreasing my dose of atenelol from 50mg bd to 50mg/d.

Basically all is good and he is happy for me to do the 2 Oceans half marathon as long as I listen to my body and just aim to finish comfortably... nothing more. Which is exactly what I planned to do :) I have entered, now I've gotta complete the next 50 days with enough training and without injury :)

Major Bleakness

I know it's stupid, but I stored all of my exercise data on my work laptop, mainly because it has a COM port which I can use to download the data (my personal computer needs a USB-Serial adaptor). So I had ALL the data that I've gathered since being in Pretoria on that PC! Which is really sad, because it's quite interesting information that I can't get back!

Oh, did I say that my laptop was stolen from my office at work this past weekend? My window was pried open and my laptop taken from my desk :( I guess it serves me right for leaving my blinds open. The saw it in the window, but we are supposed to have a really good security system, state industrial secrets and all!

Sometimes, just sometimes, I hate my country.

On the bright side, I did start this blog, to store an outline of the data, and I also have my old fashioned logbook...still

Week 30 2008

Last week's 15km is well behind me and now the 30km walk which I signed up for looms ahead. I've done a 20km walk 3 or 4 years ago and can't remember anything particularly bad about it. Except that we took pretty long, but an hour of that was spent by a good friends girlfriend bursting to go to the loo... so get it out before you start the race, it seems that there will be 1000 other people making the same mistake if you forget!

This weel I did 17.2 km, we took it very easy, because I don't think the body was quite happy by Monday, and on Wednesday and Friday we decided to take it easy aswell, because of the large distance to be covered tomorrow. I'm more worried about muscles getting stiff and feet getting sore than any cardiovascular problems. 5hrs on your feet is a long time. Then again I have done long hikes before, but thats different I think, the varying terrain gives your muscles and feet a break every now and then, whereas tar road for 5/6hrs is going to be tough.

A friend contacted me on Facebook about a walk she did not too long ago, but this was insane... 100km! 29hrs! I'm sure that must include rest breaks and meal breaks, but still thats more than a day spent on the same goal. Kudo's to her! I think I'll give that kind of distance a miss for now. I think 30km is about the limit. I think the big thing in something that long would be boredom! Perhaps I should have invested in an iPod before this one... oh well.

So it's a 5am start for me tomorrow morning and then a whole mission in and around Joburg. Wish me luck.

Week 29 2008 and my first 15km

The past week was a big week, although I didn't get a run in on Monday because I was in Cape Town, I did get a 6 in on Wednesday and a 4 in on Friday, but a four, only because I was planning on doing a 15 on Saturday morning.

I also managed, as promised to get a 6km run in on the previous Friday, in Cape Town with my old Run Walk For Life club. I didn't recognise anyone there and the manager had changed, but it was nice, and strange to be running around a familiar old route. It was a comfortable run although the girl I was running with took some time to get used to my "fartlek" "style".

Back to Saturday's 15km, it was the Marcel van't Slot Memorial race and took us on a 2 lap course around a quite hilly part of Pretoria. What was really nice was that the start was within a km of where I live so we cycled to the start, no looking for parking, no fighting traffic to get home.

This was the first time I tried running more than 10km so I changed the intervals to 50 seconds running and 2 minutes walking. In the beginning this was frustrating as everyone passes you rather quickly while you are on a walking interval, and often I gave in to the the temptation to run for a bit longer. Mostly I followed the intervals and pointed out to someone, who told me to run to the top of a hill, that it was all about pacing yourself. We left him behind somewhere around the 9km mark.

However, on the second lap I did push down a very long downhill section, continuing through two running intervals and the rest interval inbetween. What is really cool about this race is that I lapped the 10th km at 1hr14:33 which is my fastest time since moving to Pretoria, and it was in a 15km race, running slower intervals that I usually do! Just show's how much fitter I really am getting!

Around about the 13km mark however, the wheels started to wobble, I could feel that my legs weren't used to the longer time on the road and the faster finish, on a mostly downhill course to the end, didn't materialise. I also remember at that stage that the top of my quads, where I assume they join my hips, got quite tired. But I also remember not feeling short of breath or like I was pushing particularly hard, my muscles were just tired, perhaps I had the same problem of not taking in enough sugar on route.

In the end I completed the 15km in 1hr52:22 which I think is fantastic, it's just under 7:30min/km and I need to be under 8min/km to comfortably finish a half marathon. Slowly, it seems like this thing might be coming together.

After the race, when everything had cooled down I found that, not only where my muscles tired, but my knees hurt and so did the outside of my right foot, not quite sure what that means. I think that my body needs to get used to longer times on the road, I guess an added 40mins is quite significant. I was pretty exhausted on Saturday and spent most of the rest of the day relaxing in bed. I couldn't sleep very much though, I guess I was over tired. The knee and foot pain went away but the muscle stiffness remains, but I think I'll be fine to run a 6km again this afternoon.

This coming weekend should be interesting, I'm doing the 30km 702 Walk the Talk around Joburg. After this weekend I'm not sure it was a great idea. Especially considering that I'm likely to spend 5hrs walking!! Oh well it's too late to pull out now! Wish me luck

Week 28

I'm writing an early post this week because I'm going to be Cape Town over the weekend and won't get to a PC.

Yesterday I ran a route that I previously called "Hell on tar" ...it doesn't really seem like hell anymore. We have even added some extra distance to it, to make up 6km. In the spirit of saving the planet a kilometer at a time I also cycled to and from the club in the not so cold weather. I'll see if it's ok to continue when it is really cold.

Afterwards, in the shower I was thinking that I haven't had any real cardiac symptoms for a long time. Sure I watch what I eat, make sure I get enough rest and exercise regularly, but in my day to day life I don't experience any symptoms, which is awesome.

This week, I will have run 18km if I run tomorrow. I'm planning on running at my old Run Walk For Life club in Bergvliet. Hopefully the Cape Town weather stays away!

Week 27 2008

I'm gonna try do a weekly thing again, see how far I get. Rand 16km this week. It should have been 18 but I ate wrong yesterday. I'm still really amazed at what a difference diet makes to how you feel while training. I usually eat my own lunch that I bring from home. Something like a sandwich on low GI bread or wholewheat pasta with whatever sauce I have leftover.

Yesterday we had a braai for lunch so I had two boerewors rolls for lunch. Also having spent very little time in my office I hadn't had a chance to eat the fruit I normally eat daily either. This all conspired, i think to make me very miserable in yesterdays run, amd I settled for just doing 4km, while feeling the wors bouncing around in my tummy. I can't help but wonder if you get used to eating healthy, and if your body protests when you take a day off.

It's all good though, I'm gonna do a 15km in two weeks time and then walk 30km in the 702 the weekend after. So I'll make up the mileage.

A few months ago I decided I didn't feel like paying too much for petrol, driving an old car, so I bought myself a 250cc motorcycle. I was asked to help out in a race this morning, hosted by our running club. I led the lead runner around the course. Other than the fact that my hands nearly fell off because it was so cold, it was quite fun.

I'm going to Cape Town this coming Friday and I hope to go for a run at my old club, Bergvliet Run Walk For Life. I'm hoping the weather down there is good enough to go out for a 6. Will be nice to see all the old crowd that I used to run with.

A week away from the office

I spent most of this week in the county's "playground" Durban. It was cold and wet and there were an unbelievable number of traffic lights out of order! But Durban is great as it seems to have no traffic, atleast nothing compared to the M3 in Cape Town or the N1 between Joburg and Pretoria.

I was there to run a robotics competition for school kids. On the whole it was alright, and the competition was mostly a success. I think next year will be much better if we are kept on as the technical team.

Whats the point? I don't travel and exercise well. Luckily this time it was only 1 run missed. I felt really shoddy on Friday after a late Thursday night prize giving and a 6:30 flight back to Gauteng, but I went intending only to walk 4km but ended up being encouraged to do a normal 6km. As usual I felt much better afterwards.

So after a "mamoth" 25km week last week I only managed a measly 12 this week, but considering I was clocking 12 a week 3 months ago, as I was only doing 4km three times a week it's still pretty cool.

I still can't get my "Running Total" updated as I still haven't properly sorted out my log book. There are certain days on which I'm not sure I ran, I can't remember not running, but I can't be sure. Anyway thats pretty much all I have this week. I think I must find another 10km to do on the 5th of July and I must definitely enter the Spar ladies 10km... cause it's fun.

Good one!

So I ran the "Silver Oaks Crossing : Race for faith" 9.3km this morning. When I got out of bed I could have sworn I was insane, when I got out of the car into the crisp... no crisp sounds too nice... the biting morning air, I knew I deserved to be in an asylumn, but 7:30 came, really late for the start of a race and we ran it.

My watch beeped away merrily and kept us well paced. I'm currently runnning intervals of 40/60 seconds, thats 40 running and 60 walking. The combined pace is quite good at 7:13, about 67mins for the 9.3km. I'm quite happy with that, if the race was another 700m long I probably would have made it in about 72/73mins. Which I think is a significant improvement on 76mins.

I'm unable to write a proper log this week and haven't been able for a while as my log book went missing. I think I've figured out what happened. It fell out of my bag while I was on my motorbike. Luckily it's quite new so not much data is lost.


I recieved a "1000km with Run Walk For Life" certificate at a little prize giving on Wednesday, which considering everything I think is quite fantastic. More than 600km of it has been in the past year. The other distance was from when I was less enthusiastic in Cape Town.

I'm going through a bit of an "up" at the moment, I'm feeling strong and "fast" and I feel like I'm definitely going to get there. Running a 10km and not really being tired afterwards just lets me know that I'm doing this thing right and not hurting myself. I think I want to do atleast 2 more 10km runs and then I will give a 15km a try. We are currently running 6km three times a week and will probably push that up to 7km in the next month or two. Then I think I'll be happy that I can do a little more than double that in a race.

Sorry if I'm rambling, but I'm just putting some thoughts down. I'm a little frustrated with my watch at the moment. My Polar S610i, which I think is a fantastic training watch on the whole, lets me down in races. I set intervals so that I can move at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately it seems that it can only handle 30 interval repetitions! So after 50 minutes (30 * 100 seconds) my watch decides it is time for me to cool down. So I have to stop it completely and restart! This not only stuffs up my intervals but also messes up my full race time! I wrote to Polar to find out if there is a fix, I'll post what the result is.

What else I can tell you is that including this morning I did 25.3km this week and from now on I should be doing about 18km a week, which I find to be quite hectic. Thats my two cents worth for now, I hope to update my "Running Total" with an accurate number as soon as I have replaced my log book. I think it should be at about 700km by now though.

Ok ok!! I know I must be more consistent!

So I haven't posted for more than a month, terrible I know, but in all honesty I have been REALLY busy. I try to blog on weekends and I honestly haven't managed to get to a PC on the weekend for ages!

The good news is that I have been pretty consistent with my running. Except for a week in the Western Cape when I went to visit my sister and her new baby... oh and a week where I did the cycle ride mentioned in my previous post... IT WAS TORTURE by the way... otherwise I have been consistently exercising three times a week, recently more.

So here's what I've been up to in brief:
Cardiologist visit
I actually wrote a post which I must put up later this week. But the jist was that my echo indicated a significant improvement in Ejection Fraction. I'm always a little sceptical because I know that you can have errors in measurement, but it was good news.

Great Mpumalanga bike ride
Scenery: Fantastic!
People: Awesome!
Route: Hell
The route advertised and mentioned in my last post was SO not the route followed! Because there were so few entrants the organisers had to use smaller venues and so the route had to change. I wish they had told me because I probably would not have gone. I completed day 1, 6 and 7, for the rest I took the sag wagon at some point as the hills and the distance were just too great. My body was saying "dude, you're pushing too hard" by the last day I had a bit of a cold and I decided not to ride.

Do I regret going? No.
Would I do the same route again? No.
Would I go on another cycling holiday? Very likely yes.

Western Cape visit
Managed to get in one 15km ride and a 2,5hr hike up table mountain. It's always cool to come back and appreciate what you've left behind. But I should have done more and I felt it for a week or two when I got back.

Since then
Somewhere along the line I realised that I have less than a year left to get to my goal of a 21km, so I kindof decided I need to commit to some longer runs than just doing a 5km 3 times a week. So I've decided with my training partner that we will do atleast 1 10km run a month, and as those get easier or quicker we will start to do some slightly longer runs aswell.

I also decided that I would like to lose a bit of my belly so I'm following a mild weight training regime. So far I am down to my long time minimum weight of 74kg's I hope to get to about 70, I'll be happy with that.

So we did the first 10km yesterday and I thought I wasn't ready for it. It seemed like an easy route and as I got to the finish I realised I had lots left over. I completed it in 1hr16 which is fine for me although under 70mins would be much better, but I'm not looking for a time, my first priority is always just to finish. Time will look after itself.

I feel like perhaps the extra strength in my legs... and perhaps the rest of my body... helped me out yesterday, so I'm going to continue with the weights as long as it's helping me to do so.

I also looked online for info about "alternative" treatments for heart conditions. I've seen Carnitine and Co-Enzyme Q10 mentioned regularly so I will try a small dose of this for the next two months. Hopefully I feel more energetic and these items will help my heart get stronger aswell.

Summary
Basically if you thought I had gotten lazy you are wrong, I've been working hard, sometimes feeling like I'm getting nowhere, but whether I'm going through an optimistic or pessimistic phase (I know I do!! LOTS) I'm still keeping active and getting slowly closer to my goal. Watch this space :)

Heart to Heart

An interesting article, by Mens Health about heart health including an interview with my old specialist. Heart to Heart

Probably the pain killers

Refering to my last post "Palpatations...again?" according to SA Doc of All Scrubbed Up fame there are some references to the pain killer, Lentogesic, which I took on Friday night having some interactions with Atenelol. Most medications also have an effect on INR, which is controlled with Warfarin but I'm not really worried about those.

Her advice about the Lentogesic was "if you start getting palpetations, stop the lentogesic" which is exactly what I did anyway. So i think I'll delay the cardiologist visit till March when I am supposed to go anyway. Especially considering I walked 6km on Sunday, and run/walked 5 yesterday and felt fine...relatively speaking.

Palpitations...again?

Like I said in Week 4's exercise log, I slept very badly this past Friday(25th Jan) night. I told the people I was to run with that I couldn't come and went back to bed. My domestic arrived a few hours later, and I went about a normal Saturday morning. I was plagued by an intermittent headache, but put it down to dehydration. I went for lunch with some friends and when I got home I took down some laundry off the line and was standing in my kitchen when I suddenly felt VERY faint. It felt like when you suddenly get up out of bed and all the blood drains from your head. I sat down quickly and started to feel palpitations. It feels a bit like someone is shaking your body, but no-one is touching you. I broke out in a cold sweat, went to lie on my bed. It took 2-3mins to pass.

What's really worrying about this is that I don't remember having a bout like this since when I was rediagnosed. However there are a number a of explanations. I could put it down to being dehydrated, or to a reaction to the local anaesthetic that was administered for a minor surgical procedure. I was prescribed an antibiotic (Levofloxacin) and a pain killer (Lentogesic). I specifically told the pharmacist that I had a heart condition and asked if these drugs were appropriate. She seemed to think so. I will find out if they have any side effects.

However, for those of you who may be concerned, I don't think you should be too alarmed. I went for a 6km walk this afternoon and felt fine, but I think to be on the safe side I will also make an appointment to see the cardiologist as soon as possible.

Sorry I've been so scarce

For the few of you that do read this blog, perhaps you've been wondering what happened to me, or where I have been. Well I just seem to have had lots of work to do lately, and perhaps things haven't felt like they are going as well as I'd hoped they would. In short, I've been feeling kind of lousy about my running the past few weeks. It hasn't stopped me though.

Two or three weeks ago I was feeling so lethargic (all day long) that I went to my GP and asked him if he could think of anything. He listened to my breathing and my heart, ummm'd and ahh'd and couldn't tell me jack. He said maybe my electrolytes were out of balance so he sent me for a stack of blood tests, but these all came back fine, including a bilharzia test I prompted him to do as well (Roodeplaat dam is known to have it).

My bout of whatever seems to have passed but I'm still not feeling as energetic as I was a few months ago. I think there could be numerous reasons. Working late at night, eating badly, stressing about stuff. Perhaps I pushed too hard, or perhaps it's the hotter, more humid weather. I have no idea, whatever it is it's got me a bit down about my 21km goal. Got me doubting whether this thing is really possible. Everyone tells you that if you put your mind to something you will always get there. But in this case... well how do you fix a broken ticker? No amount of willpower and determination is gonna do that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop running, or trying. But I think I might take it a bit easier than I have, or try cross training with some cycling. Cycling to me seems to allow you to control your power output much better. If you're struggling up a hill, change to a lower gear, or go slower. You can't do that while running, at least I can't. I'm either running, or walking, there're not gears in between.

Besides the next big thing for me is going to be the Great Mpumalanga Bike ride. I'm going to have to get cycling fit for it, should be a blast. 8 days of slow riding through some awesome scenery. Anyway that's the end of my update, if you really want to you can go ahead and read all the new logs, I'll try keep up to date once more, but with the holidays looming, I doubt it :P

Manguzi

You know you've had a really good weekend when you put on 2 kgs! I had no self discipline! Well not really, I did go for a run on Sunday, but here's how it went down.

It was a 7hr drive to get to Manguzi, which is really the town on the Kosi bay lakes, in northern Kwazulu Natal. So I thought I could go for a run that afternoon, but when we got there, the time was spent shopping and catching up. Then it was an hours drive to the campsite in the middle of nowhere, which was great, except that the roads are all sand pits (4x4 essential) and I'm certainly not a life guard.

By that stage I was starving and when the chips came out, well...my resistance crumbled! Then everyone's drinking beer and wine... need I say more, I was really quite good until a friend poured me, what I hoped was to be a single whiskey (I'm only human) but must have been a triple!

From there on everything just went out of the window, I tried in vain sometimes, but mostly I was weak! Chips, biltong, lots of soft drinks, water etc. Don't get me wrong I had a great time, it will just take me a few days to recover properly!

The really disappointing thing is that when I did go for a run I felt terrible, more because I was bloated and carrying a stack of water than anything else I think. I did 4.3km in 34:15 on Sunday. If I could have gone for a run that first day it could have been quite interesting... well I still have a race in Cape Town in 2 weeks time. 

So the question is this, when you go on holiday, with old varsity friends, how do you refuse alcohol and other things you shouldn't eat (which you don't really want to refuse anyway) without looking like a complete party pooper? How do you only drink a litre of water a day, when you are going from place to place? It's really hard!! 

Resting heart rate

I was wondering what my resting heart rate really was the other day, I know it is best to test it in the morning, but I rarely remember to actually check. So what I did was to wear my heart rate monitor all night long. It turns out that my average resting heart rate for the 8 hours that I slept was 63bpm, which is pretty much where I want it to be.

As far as I know this would be a lot higher were I not on medication, and it's also really unfortunate that I didn't check it before I started running regularly. From now on I will do a night's sleep with my monitor on, once a month. That way I can keep track of changes.