Friday, July 24, 2009

Running For My Life*

I was determined to get back to running before my transplant. By now you all realize I'm driven, kooky, and like to show off for my doctors and children. Not so much for my readership, except to demonstrate that shaping up is a good way to approach chemo treatments and transplants. Or anything stressful.

Last Sunday, I put on my running shoes, and with my son Harry on a bike, with cell phone, we wobbled out of the driveway. After warming up for maybe 200 meters, Harry guided me through some stretches. I slowly jogged the next kilometer and stopped to check my heart rate, around 122. Then I jogged most of the way back to my house, taking a couple of breathers along the way. More stretching. I figure I ran a mile in total. It took a while for my heart rate to go down to my resting rate of around 68-72 (for which I was soundly mocked by my son Mark). I showered, reveled in the endorphin rush, and immediately started foraging for food.

On Wednesday, I got up and ran alone, 1.2 miles (2k) without stopping. I duly reported this to my oncologist at my appointment later that morning. My goal is to do 2 miles before I enter the hospital next week for pre-transplant conditioning.

*Ronni, I hope you don't mind that I borrowed your blog title. There was no better way to express this.

3 comments:

Diane Taylor said...

you are amazing, PJ...I am trying to gain a love of running; have not managed to yet! way to go, girlfriend...keep running for your life!

Ronni Gordon said...

No, I don't mind. Good work on the running. I really want to run but my legs won't let me do it yet. Great that you're going into transplant in such good shape.

Jim said...

Most certainly, you made a phenomenal statement about who you are and what you think about AML.