I Won't Give Up

Tough times in my struggling return to get back to the health that I had about 6 weeks ago... After almost 4 weeks of complete inactivity (other than lifting to put back on the 17 lbs that I lost in 20 days), I started back up with cardio at the end of last week. This also coincided with the opening of a new location for ActivEdge at United Therapeutics in the RTP. The transition into a new building and splitting my time between two locations has gone relatively smoothly but has left very little time to train. I'm not upset by this, just adjusting...

The problem is, my body is NOT adjusting. After the first several attempts at exercise, I was forced to stop due to increased breathing rates and difficulty getting my lungs back. I kept working and trying to slowly bring things back up to pace and I decreased my expectations to be anywhere near where I was at when I was forced to stop training when my lower right lobe of my lung collapsed with the pneumonia. So, I waited for my friend, and training partner, Michael Zimmerman, to get back into town before I picked back up again this past Monday.

We had a great training session and were able to hard relatively hard for an hour on the bike trainers before running a moderately paced 2 miles on the treadmill. It felt good and I was happy with my breathing. Unfortunately, while we were at lunch I started to get the tingling back in my fingers that was present just before my lung collapsed. Coupled with aniexty and then a poor decision to add the inhaler to the equation to elevate my heart rate even more, I was forced to call the paramedics once my HR was at 210 and BP at 200/110. They talked me down and I went to my doctor later that day and she told me that the tingling was to be expected since my lungs are still recovering and not to overreact and definitely do not add the inhaler to the equation. This gave me some solace and I pushed forward.

Yesterday, after working a full day at the 2 different locations again, I jumped on the treadmill and tried to do some repeat intervals. I was able to get in a few 800's and totaled 5 miles for the night. On the drive home, I started to get the tingling again in the fingertips but this time I tried deep breathing techniques and and was able to get through the discomfort. Made in home safely and felt better.

I still have yet to add back swimming because I don't really want to struggle with breathing in the water. It's been over 5 weeks since my last pool workout, that's going to be ugly when I do get back in. I am now realizing that it's going to be a long road back... and I'm definitely cutting my expectations to be ready for any race this Spring. Will have to wait for the fall... B2B is looming in October and I know I need to pace myself to be ready for that...

Not sure why I'm including this song because the lyrics don't really apply but I've been listening to it a lot while running and it seems to help.

I Won't Give Up - Jason Mraz