It's a 5K Kind of Day

You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Well over the weekend- I took a big shot; entering myself and father in a 5k race. 
On this particular day though, it was crazy hot! 100 degrees fahrenheit to be exact.  Within the first half mile, people who looked like legit runners were dropping like flies; I, at least waited until the first mile to drop and take a breather from the insane heat. 
I wasn't able to run as much as I would have liked partly due to the heat but probably mostly because I just plain wasn't up to 3 miles! But hey, it was a shot I wanted and needed to eventually take it. Now I know the race/ run atmosphere and I know what I need to work on.  After our long trek we completed our 5k in 52 minutes 39 seconds.  I bet I could have reached 52 minutes if I hadn't decided to puke before the last 200 yards. Bad decision, huh?
But I think experience only helps you to reach your ambition with sucess.

One Mile at a Time

It's not the distance that matters, it's the journey.

But man that was a nice view to be seeing while I trotted 2.01 miles!  But before you get all excited, I deffinitly had to do a little bit of walking in between miles. But hey, 2.01 is 2.01 and I'll take it.

The week previously, I was running a mile straight.  But after three days of that my ankles were in major pain; so much that it stopped me running for a week.  This might be partially due to the fact that the shoes I'm running in aren't "real tennis-shoes" oops. Guess I need to switch over to the chunk of rubber.. I should probably work on changing that.  Probably within this week or else my ankles might not be too thrilled.

Oh, and Dad, stay home next time and don't spy on me!

Don't Stop

In a few weeks I'm going to be starting college classes at FSCJ.  One of my classes will be Personal Wellness.  My first thought is that they will have us in class and talk about how bad we are eating and more we need to exercise and how lazy we are.  So, the last few days I've been trying to not only do my regular at home workouts but going to the gym, also. I figured getting "ahead of the game" (well, ahead for me) might be a plus for my sake.

A couple days ago when I went to the gym I ran on the treadmill for .25 miles. Walked .5 miles. And repeated three times.  Today, I biked 1 mile in 5 1/2 minutes.  Running was another story.  I intended to reach .25 miles and either walk or just stop after that but I realized I wasn't actually tired. So .25 turned into a half mile and again, I felt pretty good and didn't have the excuse of feeling drained so why stop there?  One beautiful mile and a 15 minute timed run later, I finished todays workout.
  I call that a job well done for today.

Obstacles Galore

"Bad is never good until worse happens. "

The joint and knee pain has gone away! But, of course something else took its place. 
For about a week now I've been having issues with my blood preasure getting too low.  I was put on Fludrocortisone to help keep it up. But taking that came with its own problems. giving me some side-effects. After having it back up to my normal numbers I decreased a little on the Fludrocortisone and I don't think my body appreciated that too much seeing it's getting low again.  Right now, I am experiencing blackouts and dizziness along with some headaches and the "normal" nausea.  I continue to work with my weights and am proud to announce that I have moved from 2 8lb weights to 2 10lb weights!  As soon as some of this dizziness goes away I hope to be back up and running.  I knew there were going to be obstacles impeding my way to my goal but slowing me down is different then stopping me.

I KNEEd Activity!

It has been difficult the last week staying off my knee.  I still continued with other things like arm weights and stretching; but I still wasn't content that I couldn't do anything else.  I find this odd seeing that I went a year and a half without doing anything and was ok. Yet again, I didn't really have a choice!
I'm excited to hopefully ease into more activity and maybe some light jogging to get my knee use to the feel of movement again. I'm also happy that because of focusing more on my stretching- my flexibility has improved immensely.  My arm weights are gonna well also. I've almost mastered my 8 lb weights (16lbs total) and am hoping to move to some heavier weights soon.
I'm still a little apprehensive about doing too much with my knee too soon; but, I have to try again some times!

Pain, Pain, Go Away, Come Again Another Day...

I was hoping the pain in my knee would have been gone by now; or even start to show some improvements, but it hasn't.  I've kept my leg pretty straight and tight the last few days, trying to isolate it; hoping it will heal quickly.   I probably need to start stretching it or try use the bicycle for a few minutes and let it try and slowly regain its normal movement.  All I know is that I need to get back to training.
 Other joints still continue to bother me a little and sometimes even refuse to operate correctly.  Just today, while decorating a cake my fingers all of a sudden cramped up and stuck straight out like pins.  I couldn't for the life of me move them or bend them.  It's definitely time to get rid of these dreadful steroids that are causing so much difficulty!
Even though I can't do much with my legs right now, I'm still trying to exercise my arms.  Every little bit of muscle is going to help me with my training; and I can definitely use it! I look forward to start my training back up and hopefully, the pain will just go away.

Complaining Solves Nothing

I despise complaining.   That's why writing this is difficult; because all I have to say is how badly my joints are hurting. But I realized that I not only need to write about the good going on during my training, but the bad too.
So here it goes. My knees feel like they are going to give out any minute and my ankles feel like they are going to break.  I am dying to get out and do something, so what training I've done so far won't be completely wasted; but even walking is too painful right now.  The reason for my muscle and joint pain is all from my lovely steroids that I am trying to slowly ween off. I should have been done with these things over a year ago when I finished chemo!
  Thankfully, I am now pretty certain that I didn't actually hurt my knee. And that doing physical activity won't actually harm it, just hurt.  But if this pain doesn't go away soon, I don't think I can handle not training. I might just have to suck it up and go!
So now that I have written about my aches and pains, it's time to train and focus on the good and how I can still train instead of focusing on what I can't do at the momment.