You may want to keep track of your total distance, daily/weekly.
You may want to keep track of your total distance, daily/weekly.
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
You may want to keep track of your total distance, daily/weekly.
Good idea! I'll log my walking / biking / running mileage separately, while I hopefully transition to mostly running.
Just completed my running workout. Haha, not much of a "workout" but it was a workout for me!
4 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk). The 'jogs' were at something like 8 min pace, so I ended up running about a mile total.
It was definitely a struggle. Each repeat, my HR got up to about 170. Mostly back down to 120 by the end the 2 minute walks ... before the last repeat, it was 125 and then 175 after, so yeah I was fatigued and it showed.
But then after a few minutes of walking around to cool down, I felt pretty good and HR was back down to 120. So, maybe next time I'll try 2 sets of 3 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk) with 5 minutes between sets.
At this rate, a 30 minute run seems a long way off, but ... baby steps.
Running and Life, or, Running versus Death
Sub-8 Mile's Cancer Battle-o-Rama
(maybe this story will, in some way, help someone you know; if so, that's cool. oh, and F cancer.)
Chapter 1
It's fall of 2011. I am working a lot, 14-16 hours, seven days. I haven't had time to run for a few months, not since spring. Ah, those sweet morning 5-milers, cruising along the canal. I ran on a flat dirt path, 2.5 miles out and back, in Saucony Shay XC flats -- my favorite training shoe. (Still have that pair now in 2020; in fact, did that last workout in them. If anybody knows where I can find something very similar lemme know). Turtles, deer, herons, all my friends along that early 5am speedway.
Suddenly, there are 2 tumors. They are growing noticeably every day. I'm kinda freaked, but the Dr says hey no big deal. "No one dies of this kind of cancer anymore." Famous words that will ring in my head, years later.
The doc says "OK, so if you want to get a 2nd opinion, or take some time to think about it" ... and I don't let him finish.
"Nobody's gonna tell me anything different, are they?"
"Well ... no," the doc says.
"Days count, right?" I'm looking him dead in the eye. "Right?"
"Yes," he says. "Days count."
"OK, let's do the surgery IMMEDIATELY. Can we do it later today?"
"No, not today ... I have to schedule an operating room at a local hospital and it depends on availability."
"OK, how about tomorrow? Any hospital. I don't care. I'll pay."
It's 10:30 am on a Friday in November. At 11:30, the Dr's office calls. They have me booked for early Monday morning. I don't realize, until typing this right now at this moment, that spending this weekend with my cancer foreshadows another weekend that I will one day spend quite intimately with the cancer. For now, I am just anticipating Monday's surgery and hoping that these two disturbingly fast-growing tumors don't metastasize over the weekend. For now, it's Stage I. I can deal with that.
And then, I'll finish these projects at work, and by late winter I'll be back on the canal, training. Cuz I've got a bone to pick with the 800 meters.
Running and Life, or, Running versus Death
Sub-8 Mile's Cancer Battle-o-Rama
(maybe this story will, in some way, help someone you know; if so, that's cool. oh, and F cancer.)
Chapter 2
They did the surgery. Removed the two malignant tumors. Whenever you have a tumor removed, apparently they send it to the lab for analysis.
I'm not gonna try to communicate a bunch of medical lingo. My lab report basically said "Oh crap, this is a really strange looking scary weird some sorta tumor really confusing we dunno, gonna send it to the Well Known Hospital And Medical Research Place and they can maybe figure it out." Uhhh ... yeah, they hadn't seen it before, or heard of it.
It's not like this was some podunk medical center in a one-horse town, either (nothing wrong with that, though); this was a good-sized, well-staffed hospital in a major metropolitan area.
So the Well Known Hospital And Medical Research Place does their analysis of my freaky-deaky tumors and their lab report says something like "Oh man we haven't seen this before either and we don't know if anybody ever has but anyway we can say that based on the mixture of super-evil malignant stuff in these tumors well uh-oh seriously watch out if the cancer comes back cuz it's gonna be bad."
Didn't matter, I was feeling bulletproof since post-surgery scans and bloodwork indicated no cancer anywhere.
My oncologist said that I could do chemo as a precaution and that it would reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. Or, I could just do chemo in the future if and when if ever came back. But, if I did it now, it would be less chemo than if I needed it later. Either way, it was totally treatable. 99% cure rate. No worries.
For most patients with no trace of cancer, 95% chance of no recurrence. For me, with the crazy psycho dangerous tumors, they guessed maybe 80%.
I wish I could say I took the damn chemo. But I had running on my mind, and lots of projects at work, and it very likely wasn't going to come back, and if it did it was curable, so why take some nasty poison that will just mess up work and running? Lemme just get back to all the stuff I wanna do, it's a good bet, odds are on my side anyway and it's not too risky right?
In retrospect ... man. And to make it worse, that awesome job with all the cool projects didn't even pan out in the long-term. I fell on tough times and didn't do any running either.
But -- nothing for 4 years. Healthy. No cancer. Clean scans. Clean bloodwork.
Until 2015.
Please continue as time allows....
Sub-8 Mile wrote:
Just completed my running workout. Haha, not much of a "workout" but it was a workout for me!
4 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk). The 'jogs' were at something like 8 min pace, so I ended up running about a mile total.
It was definitely a struggle. Each repeat, my HR got up to about 170. Mostly back down to 120 by the end the 2 minute walks ... before the last repeat, it was 125 and then 175 after, so yeah I was fatigued and it showed.
But then after a few minutes of walking around to cool down, I felt pretty good and HR was back down to 120. So, maybe next time I'll try 2 sets of 3 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk) with 5 minutes between sets.
At this rate, a 30 minute run seems a long way off, but ... baby steps.
I did another running attempt yesterday. Was going for the 2 sets of 3 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk) that I had mentioned above, but was feeling OK after the 3rd jog, so I just did 6 x (2 min jog, 2 min walk) without the 5 min break.
I'm definitely getting stronger. HR was a bit high (160-165) after each jog, but I was recovering back down to around 110-120 with the 2 min walks.
The rest of last week, I walked 3-5 miles every day.
I'm continuing to walk every day. Just finished a 3.5-mi morning walk (about 1 hour).
Yesterday, I did a super-light hill session. Not a great idea, as it turns out, so I'll hold off on those for a while.
On an 8% grade, approx 150m, I first jogged up in 45 sec for a quick warm-up. I knew that a proper warmup would be advisable if I was going to be going up this hill, but the problem is that I can barely run in the first place -- so no warmup.
4 repeats, moderate effort, 2 min walk down recovery. 35, 32, 32, 32. Didn't push too hard.
But this morning, on the walk, my right Achilles and my left foot were hurting a bit. So, I'll stick to the other running rehab workouts I've been doing, which are all on grass and around soccer fields.
Do some mobility and stretching on your calves. Try repeat walking repetition on the hill next time, perhaps less incline.
Yeah, it was dumb. Good thing I didn't go hard. I'll keep off the hills for now.
I finished up the week with more walking, and about 15 miles of biking between Fri & Sat, plus a day off on Sunday. Had to lay off the running; I was having a bit of a problem with my left foot and ankle. About 2 months ago, I was feeling dizzy and I very mildly sprained my left foot. But I don't heal as quickly as I did pre-cancer, so it still hurts a little sometimes - and those hills the other day flared it up, even though I thought I was going easy.
Lesson learned. Take it slow. Dang it.
Running and Life, or, Running versus Death
Sub-8 Mile's Battle-o-Rama
(maybe this story will, in some way, help someone you know; if so, that's cool. oh, and F Cancer.)
Chapter 3
Summer 2014.
It’s been 3 years since they removed two tumors. At that point they said, go have a great life. You’ll probably never see us again. Normally this cancer never comes back. To me, that sounds great!
So, like they said, I’m living my life … trying, anyway. Work sucks and isn’t really going well. And, I'm not running much. That isn’t good. Running keeps me grounded, focused, connected to myself and to the world. Sans running, I’m untethered, anxious, irritable. Like many other runners, it’s my antidepressant.
September 2015. Four years since cancer surgery.
Everything has turned around for the better. I’ve been working at a fantastic opportunity for a couple of months. Basically my dream job, working with a great business owner who wants to partner with me long-term to develop his company. I’ve analyzed his marketing, sales, and pricing strategy. I’ve met with manufacturers and suppliers, and planned for diversification & growth. With my input, this family-owned business is poised to achieve its best profitability in three generations, within just one year. I’m on top of the world.
I’m feeling fantastic, got myself a new place - a cozy old cottage amidst towering mature oaks, by a big state park. I can bike through the park to and from work, plus there’s miles of trails for hiking and running. Everything is getting better. Soon, I’ll get back to training for the 800m. Still wanna scratch that itch.
Out of the blue, there’s a tumor. Size of a goose egg. In my belly somewhere, in a lymph node. They can’t operate or even do a biopsy, because it’s pressed up against my aorta and god forbid if they accidentally poke into my aorta because then I could bleed out in moments.
No worries, though. This type of cancer always responds to chemotherapy. I notice when they say “responds to” … they didn’t say “is cured by”. Huh.
They say they basically solved this type of cancer 10 or 15 years ago. Now, they say, every doctor does the same thing: look on the official treatment chart, determine the type/amount of chemo needed, follow the steps. Easy. Paint by numbers, right? No sweat. Except, they remind me, yours was mean and nasty, remember? It’s very aggressive. But that’s OK. We’ll just give you the max chemo your body can handle. As much as you can take. You’re athletic, right? Good, that’s good. That means your heart can pump a lot of stuff. Yeah, we’re going to fill you up with a lot of … stuff.
They end up weighing me every day when I come in for treatment, to calculate the maximal amount of derived-from-bad-poisonous-plant-that-grows-in-the-woods and heavy-metal-based chemotherapy that they can pour into me for that day and my heart will still be able to pump that load. They also fill me up with steroids to help my body get through the ordeal.
The steroids make me a raging lunatic. I have outbursts at work, because I’m too stubborn to take a few months off and anyway I need to keep earning.
But I’m feeling confident. Gimme all the mandrake plant extract and liquefied platinum you got, I can take it.
Despite the bravado, I’m in rough shape. The treatment goes on for months, and it isn’t easy. Hair falling out is no big deal; I don't care about that. The nausea and the inability to eat and the usual chemo effects are challenging. But other things are worse.
Part of my job involves getting onto roofs. The heavy doses of chemo make me feel extremely dizzy, so after driving to each work location without crashing, unloading the ladder weak from chemo, and CLIMBING UP the ladder (uhh ... interesting experience), I have a conversation with myself:
"I'm not actually dizzy. See? My balance is fine. I just FEEL dizzy and this roof FEELS like it's swirling around, but actually, I'm not off balance. I can just put one foot in front of the other and not fall. OK? OK. Not falling. Walking steadily. Not. Falling." Afterwards, the ladder is always magically back on the truck; I have no recollection of how.
In this dizzy state, I sometimes have roid rage. Insanely yelling at people around me, making no sense. Everyone avoids the angry bald guy with no eyebrows.
I strangely float in a weird world that is mostly obscure to me. People appear through the fog, and disappear again. Objects disappear too. Keys, other stuff. Wasn't that just in my hand? Wait, maybe that was yesterday. Or two months ago. Time doesn't really flow normally; it is both sped up and slowed down all-at-once.
One day, I am driving down the road, and suddenly a panic comes over me. I quickly pull over. I have no idea where I am, and the chemicals elevate my fright. How did I get here?? How could I ever get back home??? I'm desperately exhausted and sick, and I need my bed. I am lost, and in this moment I know that I will be lost forever. It's scary and real.
Soon, I realize that I'm on the main street, about 3 miles from my house, where I drive nearly every day. I know exactly where I am, and there is no way I could get lost here if I drove with my eyes closed. I make it home, crawl into bed, and zonk out for 14 hours. Later, my doctor explains that the view outside my vehicle's windows was moving faster (45mph) than my brain could process, so I "outran" my senses and it took a few minutes for my impaired mind to catch up.
Sometimes, I head to the office, only to find that all my energy for the day was depleted by getting dressed and driving 4 miles to work. Too weak to leave, I sleep deeply, soundly, dreamlessly in a chair until night, then I wake and drive home to sleep again until morning.
Increasingly sick and exhausted, I can go from zero to 100 on the rage scale. Steroidal fury. In an instant, I flash hot from head to toe -- my entire body feels extremely hot, suddenly and literally -- and I am unimaginably furious. Minutes later, I am back to deflated and listless.
Often, I talk nonsense. I never remember any of it, but everybody else does. Usually they're kind about it. Sometimes, they're distant and I don't know why, or I'm too out of it to notice.
Freezing while sweating profusely under a pile of blankets, I am at times unable eat, or move. When I have some energy, I chastise myself aloud. "THIS is why you are supposed to have a WIFE, dumba**. So if one of you gets sick, the other one is THERE. Idiot. What the hell have you been doing? You should have gotten married by now." The silent cottage, my home and my hopeless prison, has no response.
It's like running repeats. Hard, impossibly hard repeats that strip the life from me. But the thing about repeats, I remind myself, is that you always recover. That time I decided to "train" on 10 miles per week? I think of the 8 x 200m workouts, about being so undertrained and running those 200s so hard that by the end of the workout, the green grass around the track literally appeared bright yellow-orange to me. I remember how I had a rule that I couldn't drive for at least 30 minutes after finishing those sessions because I ran myself into the equivalent of being drunk.
"You will always recover." In my quiet fortress of solitude, I wait for time to pass so I can recover and go do more chemo.
Between repeats, I head out and buy some decent bourbon. Strict orders from the doctor: zero alcohol ... but I have zero f***s to give today. I pick up some mouth-watering beef stew with the most delicious aroma and sit outside in the cold because I can't feel the cold anyway and I wanna watch the goddamn sunset because I am at least a little bit alive right now and that kicks ass. I take my time with the hot, savory stew because it's the best thing I have ever tasted and it could possibly be the last reasonable meal I get. The sunset on the ridge in the park is perfect and I enjoy my meal with a Guinness extra stout, because I am a f***ing man and I am f***ing alive. In the dusky afterglow, bourbon is my dessert and my solace.
"If you had a wife," I say in a very late retort, "She would NEVER let you do this."
The autumn vanishes. Thanksgiving? More like Chemo-Giving. I am weary and ill. Christmas? Chemomas. Each time, I arrive early in the morning and they weigh me. They crunch numbers. Then they hook me up to bag-after-bag-after-I-don't-know-how-many. Other patients come and go during the morning and afternoon; they get their chemo done within 45 or 90 minutes. The other chemo patients refer to me as "that guy who's doing all the chemo."
Late afternoon, today's poison is done flowing into me. I woozily meander outside to my car and drive away, very slowly. I'll be back tomorrow for more, because I'm pushing for the max and this wasn't enough. I got at least one more in me. How do I know? Well, I don't see any orange grass yet.
Sub-8 Mile wrote:
I finished up the week with more walking, and about 15 miles of biking between Fri & Sat, plus a day off on Sunday. Had to lay off the running; I was having a bit of a problem with my left foot and ankle. About 2 months ago, I was feeling dizzy and I very mildly sprained my left foot. But I don't heal as quickly as I did pre-cancer, so it still hurts a little sometimes - and those hills the other day flared it up, even though I thought I was going easy.
Lesson learned. Take it slow. Dang it.
Light days so far this week. No running at all. Walked 1.5 mi Tue, Wed, and this morning (Thu). That healing-sprain is much better at this point.
Will do walking/biking for the rest of this week, plus maybe some bodyweight lunges & squats. On Sat or Sun, I'll do another "return-to-running rehab jogging workout" -- I'll repeat the 6 x (2 min easy run, 2 min walk) from the other day.
If that goes well (as it did last time), then next week I'll bump it up to 4 x 3 min easy run with 2 min walk.
Keep the ball rolling....
I skipped the return-to-running workout - that mild but slow-healing sprain could use a little more rest. Just walked 3 miles each day, and biked 3 miles on Saturday (yesterday). That's all for this week!
Sub-8 Mile wrote:
Part of my job involves getting onto roofs.
Now that sentence surprised me.
This is the kind of thread that makes this message board worth a damn.
Yep, this guy is pretty tough.
Randy Jenkins won two NCAA high jump titles in the 90s after cancer.
“I am at least a little bit alive right now and that kicks ass.”
QOTD right there.
Mikeh33 wrote:
Hodgkin's Lymphoma wrote:
I ended up running under 31 for the 10K after a few years and considered training hard again. However, I was never able to recover from hard training and my immune system seemed to always break down on me after a couple of weeks...
Wow! You weren’t running seriously, had a hard time recovering, yet ran a 30 minute 10K? That is remarkable. Were you professional or D1 at one time.
I was a D1 runner and was a senior (maybe a junior) when I got cancer. I probably had it for a year and a half before I got diagnosed. I got diagnosed and started treatment in July after my senior season, so I was only a few months out of serious training when I was done with treatment. There was a sprinter on the team who had the same cancer before me and was able to come back and finish out his college career successfully.
I was able to 'run' some during most of my treatments (usually about 9 minute pace for a mile or two) since I only had to go to chemotherapy twice a week (not so much running at the end). I took about a month off after treatments to recover and started jogging easy with walk breaks for a couple weeks. Usually only made it about a mile or so.