Post-Cancer Comeback

WOC wrote:

I've been able to get back into good shape (6:15 for a mile & 1/4 on a treadmill this year), but it takes time. I think muscular strength is what is most limiting (i.e. Kevin Castille). An age related HRmax limited cardiac output too. I posted a VO2max of 72 a year after transplant, so aerobic fitness wasn't lost.

Yeah, I have noticed the same. Feels like my body *wants* to get in better shape aerobically, and that a limiting factor is strength -- in muscles and connective tissues. With that in mind, I'll be trying out a regimen for a few weeks that targets strength.

I've had a few rest days and very light walking days recently. Mildly strained an adductor -- after doing several carioca drills, I did some bodyweight lunges. After forward lunges, I started side lunges and felt a strain. I stopped immediately and have been resting it.

I had noted previously that the carioca drills were surprisingly challenging and tiring. I didn't realize just how tiring they were ... my adductors were completely burned after 4 x 100m carioca drills in each direction (left, right) and so those side lunges were way too much. Lesson learned.

I think I've rested it enough now. Will get back to it this week.

I have limited drills to 20 meters; 100 meters seems excessive.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I have limited drills to 20 meters; 100 meters seems excessive.

I certainly understand that perspective -- in HS and college, my coaches always had us doing 50m drills and it seemed to work well for the teams. However, I always felt like nothing was happening. After college, I found that 100m was better for me. The last 20-30m, when slightly tired, was where I felt the work was being done, as I has to focus on continuing to properly execute the exercise.

Now, if I break down entirely during the last 10-20m, I end the drill and rest for the next one. But it seems like I'll probably build back up to full 100m drills as I regain strength.

Probably getting too analytical here, but in periodizing plyometric activities like you are doing one should track contacts. The number of times you touch the ground. Also, no more than 1-2 times a week, if you are doing hills of any type, then once or none of the lunges or sprint drills.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Probably getting too analytical here, but in periodizing plyometric activities like you are doing one should track contacts. The number of times you touch the ground. Also, no more than 1-2 times a week, if you are doing hills of any type, then once or none of the lunges or sprint drills.

Thanks for that - I have to remember for when I get to more intense plyos/hills/sprint drills.

I'm thinking that, for now while just going for basic fitness & strength, my daily "easy/moderate" approach will be:

- Short jog, starting with just 1/2 mile, rolling heel strike to go easy on that Achilles. Currently can't run more than that without it turning into a "hard day", and being a bit much for the Achilles.

- Instead of more running, carioca drills (because they don't bother the Achilles and it's a way to do something on my legs & feet), 4 x 100m each direction (left, right) for a total of 800m drills.

- That's a total of 1 mile "volume" for each day, which seems to be all I can handle for now, without turning into a "hard day".

- Bodyweight lunges, forward direction only. These have not been a problem for me when done daily -- think of how many, many, many steps we take when running 5 or 10 miles. I'm not doing any of that, so these lunges shouldn't be too much if done daily, I don't think.

- Calf raises, same thinking as for doing lunges daily. Gotta strengthen those calves & Achilles.

- Ankle walks

Plus 1-2 days off per week, and a day with a long walk (like 10 mi) plus squat-jumps - this would be my weekly hard day.

I'm ditching the bike sessions (too hard on my knees) and hills (too hard on my Achilles) for now, in order to focus on the above.

Gonna give this a try for a few weeks and see how it goes.

Part of your achilles/calf issue is the need to develop more lateral strength. That is why carioca works for you. Do this lunge variation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qs62pdKvUY

Also, crab walks with thera band....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSUgY18F63o

And lateral runs with overhead clap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXUd4I91P5E

Two times a week is plenty. Doing every day is not helping.

Igy,

Thank you. You have taken quite a bit of time to offer your knowledge and experience. I really appreciate it.

These exercises look perfect. I think I recall the thera band crab walk from PT, 15ish years ago.

Typical exercises for older runners, just like the achilles issue being a malady. So a little bit of this will go along way, as well as bent leg/straight leg heel drops. Again, every day is counterproductive.

Good call, Igy. I rested & stretched for a couple of days, then did the carioca exercises 2 days in a row. Next day, my right hamstring/calf/glute were completely tight and pulling on that Achilles, which was a little bit stiff & sore. (the good thing is, that muscle tightness at least tells me that what I'm doing is activating those weak muscles and making them work)

I took a rest day, stretched everything out, and did some easy walk/jog 100's today.

Gonna revise my approach and step it down a little. Dang.

Give your self some credit. You’re making progress. No need to beat yourself up. I

Lance won the tour post cancer. All you need are some good drugs

We’ll ignore that post in poor taste.

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 12

September 20, 2016

Tuesday. I made it.

My friend has arrived, whole wheat bagel in hand. She is trying to get me to eat something before we head to the Well Known Hospital And Medical Research Place. I’m not hungry. She has handed me half of the bagel and I haven’t taken a bite.

“It’s too much,” I say. “I can’t eat all that.” I’m sitting in my bed, refusing the food like a recalcitrant child.

She reminds me that we may possibly end up waiting for a while, so I need to have eaten something. She breaks the half-bagel in half and gives it back to me. Unenthusiastically, I begin to nibble with the tiniest of bites.

Every swallowed tiny bite feels huge in my stomach. It takes over half an hour, with plenty of encouragement, to eat just ⅓ of the quarter-bagel. Now I am stuffed and over-full, as if I’ve just overeaten a gluttonous holiday dinner -- and I am exhausted from the effort.

I rest for a few minutes, then we drive to the Well Known Hospital And Medical Research Place.

*****

I park in the 3rd or 4th level in the parking garage, at the corner nearest to the elevator. We ride down and step out, next to a small traffic circle. I don’t know it, but it is almost exactly 400 meters from this spot to the entrance of the cancer building. Normally, this would be a 5 minute walk.

400 meters. Off I go.

I make it around the traffic circle with slow, 18-inch strides to make sure I have enough breath to keep the pace.

Very, very slowly. Any faster and I’ll run out of breath. This is my absolute top speed.

60 meter split: 3 minutes.

This is 20-minute-flat pace. I’m flying.

We arrive at a long, straight, broad brick walkway lined with manicured shrubs & trees. 120 meters from here up to the next street.

Rounding the corner off the traffic circle, I step boldly into this straightaway. I got this.

What I don’t yet know is that there’s about 7 meters in elevation gain.

Without slowing, I stride up this very slight incline. No problem. That is, for the first 20 meters. Then I come to a set of stairs on one side and a ramp on the other.

I go for the ramp. It’s about 10 meters long, with a black metal railing on one side. Charging forward, at my slow, steady walking effort, I am quickly overwhelmed by the steep grade of this wheelchair-accessible incline. Reeling, I stagger 2 steps to my right and catch myself on the railing.

Leaning on the railing, I catch my breath as people leisurely stroll by with zero exertion.

84 meters, and it’s been 5 minutes.

I straighten up. Gripping the metal rail with both hands, I climb the ramp. Hand-over-hand, up this mountain. It takes all my might.

Gasping and gray, I am in the 400 meters of my life.

My friend worriedly hovers nearby. There isn’t much she can do but watch, and offer the occasional encouraging word.

Reaching the top of the ramp, I blast into the next low-incline section of the brick walkway. Super slow, 16-inch walking strides, 100% top sustainable speed.

100 meter split: 8 minutes.

As I dash ahead to the next ramp, I look ahead up the long red brick corridor. It looks like it goes forever to the horizon.

I glare at the ramp in front of me. Hurling myself at the railing, I launch into a full-body effort. Hands grasping, arms pulling, legs churning. Everything spins around me -- the walkway, the trees, the brick-and-glass buildings.

Passersby glance perplexedly at the strangely weak man, barely moving, feebly engaging in an epic struggle against a handicap ramp.

But for me, this is dead serious. I am running 400m directly up the peak of Everest. It’s taking everything I have.

Another ramp, and another. 150m split: 17 minutes. I’m not aware at the moment, but I am on pace to go 400m in 45.

At this point, there is a flat walkway to my right, going parallel to the road at the top of this brick straightaway. I ditch the endless ramps, take the turn, and accelerate. I know there will be a left turn up ahead, with more uphill at that point, but I need this flat section right now.

It’s 100 meters with a 2-meter gradual drop. I floor it, opening my full-effort stride to 20 inches, blowing through 200m in 20 flat.

I can’t maintain it. I run out of breath. Not huffing and puffing like a miler who went out at 600m pace; more like a fish out of water. My mouth gapes and gasps. There’s just … no air.

Pace slowing, heart rate soaring, my stride narrows to 15 inches, then 12. The long gray sidewalk matches my pallor.

I reach the end of the sidewalk. 250m in 26 minutes. Now I make that left turn. Sure enough, it’s uphill after the turn.

Going from a slight downhill, to walking up this hill to the street, when I already have no breath … it’s going to take a lot. It’s 30m to the street, and I have to go uphill 1 meter.

After what feels like going forever with no oxygen, I make it up to the street to a traffic circle. Halfway around the circle, my 300m split is 33. 100m to go.

Tremendously exhausted, I continue around the small traffic circle to a sidewalk lined with bricks on one side and a black wrought-iron fence on the other. I’ve made it to the final straight. 80m left.

Nearly collapsing with each step, I cling to the wrought-iron fence as I struggle forward. I know that I can make it -- barely -- as long as I hang on to this fence and keep pushing.

The fence ends after 20m.

I stand here, at the corner of the fence. There’s another section of wrought-iron fencing 10m away … it might as well be a kilometer. I have to make it unsupported.

Like an untethered astronaut, I step out into the void.

My strides are 8 inches. I can’t see the buildings around me, or the cars, or the people. Just what is in front of me … I reach out and grab the cold black metal.

350m. 39 minutes.

Over the next 6 minutes, I am a gasping man in a slow-motion race for life or death.

I make it inside the door, where my friend is waiting with an attendant and a wheelchair.

Nobody can tell me I haven’t done 400m in 45.

As always, thanks for writing. This chapter was a thrill! You might have a post-cancer side career as a play-by-play guy or race analysis writer; you have a lovely sense of tension and pacing for storytelling. Keep going!

Fou2 wrote:

As always, thanks for writing. This chapter was a thrill! You might have a post-cancer side career as a play-by-play guy or race analysis writer; you have a lovely sense of tension and pacing for storytelling. Keep going!

Wow, thanks. I'm writing Chap 13 now ... ok, as a possible future writer: here's a spoiler, well no, it's more of teaser: I am forced to take drastic, dangerous physical action, out of desperation. Coming soon, to a Battle-O-Rama post near you.

btw I previously posted Chapters 10 & 11 -- ended up being at the same time as some other conversations on this thread so those chapters might have gotten a bit buried in case anybody who's interested may have missed them.

For anybody who has experienced cancer personally, or through a friend/family member, or who (god forbid) may have that experience in the future: I hope these 'Battle-O-Rama' posts are maybe helpful in some way. For me, composing and posting these chapters has allowed me to go back and work through some hard times with the fresh eyes of a healthier & stronger self. I am not 100% yet, after 3 years post treatment. But now I can better see where I've been & how far I've come, and I feel a whole lot better about where I am & where I'm going.

Thanks to everybody.

I look forward to each chapter.

Thank you for posting such detailed posts.

I am in active treatment now. I finished chemo but have radiation coming up. Trying to come back to running has been a big question in my mind and I feel like when I ask for specifics I get a lot of..high fives and thoughts and prayers but not advice.

Its like no one has done it before, so seeing your posts is fascinating to me.

It also helps seeing how similar a lot of people felt to me during treatment (could only run maybe 1-2 miles..that is definitely me).

I switched to the peloton through treatment and did that consistently.

I also still did yoga and tried to lift weights but weights made me really sore.

I'm back also trying to get back into running and honestly maybe stupidly hadn't considered a lot of these things

I can run for around 20 min easy right now so I was just going to build from that. You gave me a lot to consider.

My chemotherapy was R-Chop. I felt like the prednisone assisted my weight lifting. Plus I put on about 30 pounds. Running was more difficult with the weight. Radiation made me sleepy after treatment, but easier than chemo for exercising.

F Cancer. Glad to hear you've made it through chemo. I hope you are thinking of your complete recovery, as well as your running!

I might suggest consulting with your general practitioner, a health/nutrition expert, and anybody else you can think of who might be able to provide input re how to recover, what your body needs, how to track any resulting imbalances/deficiencies, etc. Oncology won't do much about these things; they are focused on treating cancer but not on healing after cancer & treatment.

Looking back, had I known, I also would have enlisted the help of a PT (and any others) who specializes in geriatric physical rehab. Going through the debilitating process of losing both my physicality and my mind, I felt like I took a crash course in aging.

I also would have benefited from taking some basic community college courses. Stuff I learned in high school & college, like math, say algebra, geometry, on up. It would have been very challenging to relearn at first; I believe this would have stimulated my mental recovery. I could probably still benefit from doing this ... I have noticed that I'm a bit sharper in some ways, as a result of writing LRC posts that require me to organize and express my thoughts.

Just some ideas ... best wishes re upcoming radiation.