Showing posts with label Longview 10K. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Longview 10K. Show all posts

Saturday, November 9, 2019

What a relief

I did run that 10K race today. I will confess I was extremely anxious this morning before the race started. Having already hurt myself running when I shouldn’t have, I was afraid I might be making the same mistake. I wasn’t going to wear the chest strap heart monitor, but Kent pointed out that if I ended up with cadence lock and my heart rate looked alarming, that would be not so good. So I wore it and fretted before the race started because my heart was racing from nerves. Also it was really cold with a wind that just cut through my clothes.

Enough about that . . . I’d set three goals for this race:

  1. Be smart and walk if my heart went nutty.
  2. Break one hour again
  3. Run at an average pace of 9:30 min/miles. 
I considered the last two goals to be probably out of reach since I haven’t been able to train the last three weeks. But a closed mouth doesn’t get fed so I set those goals anyway.

Long story not so long, I hit them all. I ran an average pace of 9:29, broke an hour and best of all had no heart rate issues. I mean not a one. My heart was Steady Eddie the whole way. AND in a pretty crowded 10K race of over 600 people, I placed third in my age group. Now that was a very unexpected and nice surprise!

Today marks five weeks off tamoxifen and I’m also seeing the other common side effects dwindling away. I’m still going to get those cardiac tests, they’re scheduled, and I would rather make sure all’s well with my ticker. Plus I’ve hit all my deductibles this year and I’d rather not start next year with expensive tests. In fact, I hope for a very boring year for my health (and Kent’s too).

Monday, November 4, 2019

Not sure what to do . . . any runners want to weigh in?

I'm still having issues with my heart rate while running. Last week, I got in just one so-called normal run on October 29 where my heart rate behaved. I tried two more times but ended up stopping almost immediately because of the spikes.

No heart issues w/ HIIT
Thing is, I signed up for a 10K this Saturday, and spent the money for VIP access. This race is held in a large park, and it's where the Great Plains 10K was in September. There were not nearly enough Porta Potties so I spent the money to get to the extra ones, plus a heated tent. So it would pain me greatly to lose the money without having had the fun of a race.

However, in addition to my heart rate spiking, now my blood pressure is doing wonky things. It's high for me: 148/72. I'm normally no more than 110 on the top number and in the low 60s for the bottom number. So this is definitely high.

The other oddity is that I've done HIIT this week with zero heart rate issues. I mean I'm going hard, very breathless and sweaty and my heart just clocks along in the 130s. I would suspect cadence lock for my heart rate while running only a week ago, I bit the bullet and got a chest heart rate monitor and it's showing the same spikes when I run.

The heart rate spikes may still be from tamoxifen. I'm four weeks out and it's one that hangs around. My blood pressure may be due to Prolia as this is a known side effect (see page two of this PDF).

If you're a runner and you were me, what would you do?
  • Bail on the race (would be my first ever did not start)?
  • Try and know I might have to stop (which would also be my first ever did not finish)? 

The other factor is I know this course now, since I ran it in September. We'll have two water stations and no way to do anything other than walk or trot back to the starting area. The course is a big loop and easily 2/3 of it is trail so it's not like anyone can fetch someone who's in trouble.

Kent's running the 5K there, so I'll be there anyway. I want to run this race, but I want to run it competitively and in a way that doesn't harm me. Decisions, decision.