SO… earlier this summer I found out I’ve atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter- basically, short-circuits in my heart. Whee. ANYWAY, so after way too many tests and studies and ‘imaging’ etc…
I finally hear out that I’ve been cleared. I’m on 50 mg Toprol, but aside from that and some common sense, I’m good to go. Not completely cleared, but as long as HR stays below 150 or so, I should be fine.
Naturally, I celebrated by gorging-- Indian buffet. Moron.
SUCH a huge load off, though-- I still have the ‘short circuits’ but unless symptoms pop up again, there’s really no need to just sit on my ass WAITING anymore.
Not that I’ll be able to jump right back to tabata or anything, but… still. Excited/relieved/taller.
Reading a book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, that’s actually pretty good. It’s been translated from Japanese to English, so maybe that has something to do with it, but it’s pretty slow at times.
On the other hand, he’s pretty upfront about it being as much a memoir as thoughts on distance running-- and neither genre’s a favorite of mine to say the least…
Not sure what my point was. Anyway, I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would.
And I’m frustrated with starting things off so @#^#^@% light and slow. It’s really pretty difficult to keep HR below 150 if I’m actually WORKING at something…
Stealing someone else’s idea (Shug): I just steamed a 1# bag of veggies and am working my way through it over the rest of the day.
there were a few questions re: flavor, and in response to those:
chinese mustard. 1 tsp (goes a LONG way) has no fat, zero cholesterol, and only 8 mg sodium. 6 oz lean ham so far in terms of protein-- plan on loading that back in tomorrow esp peri-workout-
Had some inspiration today and was able to fight off a crippling case of the mondays. Did NOT feel like going to train today- no soreness, no fatigue, no swine / bird/ whatever flu… just didn’t feel like it.
But I did. Weights still barely worthy of the name, but I’m making progress–
i’m battling the AF/flutter demon, too. weight room still feels great but running not so much…so your observations have been inspiring. Question: do you experience any acute breathlessness (apart from the obviously healthy variety that accompanies working out?) again, it’s not a problem in the gym, but it is an unequivocal pain on the trail
obviously been sub-optimal on keeping up with this, but I figure there’s no time like the present to start up again–
just did - my favorite - 30 minutes on the ellipse. Whee. Intervals with work sets broken btwn 1 minute @ 20 incline, 20 resistance (c. 60 strides per minute) and 1 min @ 20/10 (c. 90 spm); rest portions @ 8 incline, 3 resistance (alt between 130 and 180 spm).
followed with 3 sets x 10 reps at 120 on lat pulldowns, and then
15 flights of stairs up, 14 down. Tried to alternate between walking straight up and crossing over left-right.
Total: 42:36, 41:14 of which was ‘in zone’ w/ avg HR of 142 and peak 160 and min 99.
Long way to go, obviously; on the flip side, I’m at least heading in the right direction.
[quote]dglees wrote:
i’m battling the AF/flutter demon, too. weight room still feels great but running not so much…so your observations have been inspiring. Question: do you experience any acute breathlessness (apart from the obviously healthy variety that accompanies working out?) again, it’s not a problem in the gym, but it is an unequivocal pain on the trail
thanks![/quote]
yeah, that’s pretty much the problem. As long as I keep my HR down below 160, everything’s gravy. I push myself like I feel I have to for it to be CALLED pushing myself and HR kicks up to 250 or so and everything basically shuts down. As a result, doc doesn’t want me going past 160 and so now I wear a monitor like a moron every time I go out. As if I can’t tell when one of these ‘episodes’ takes place without a watch to tell me.
Meh. Anyway, in short: yeah, certainly do get the breathlessness etc from time to time but- really- in the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty f’ing minor problem to have and pretty easy to work around, so I definitely shouldn’t really bitch as much as I do.