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).

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.

A follow up to the heart rate stuff

I saw my medical oncologist’s physician’s assistant yesterday—first time I’d met her. Somehow the message I’d sent through the portal and was why the MO’s office set up that appointment yesterday, didn’t make it into why I was there. Frustrating.

Anyway, I recapped things with the nurse and then the PA:

Runner for decades, three things have changed in my world in the last few months. About 10 days after starting the tamoxifen, I started having heart rate spikes while running. Tamoxifen was the only thing I could stop and maybe see if that’s what caused the issue, even knowing that it’s got a half life of four to six weeks (meaning it sticks around that long after stopping the medication). Heart rate is better but still spikes but I also still have three of the very common side effects from tamoxifen.

Both the nurse and the PA asked how high my heart rate had spiked—176, 189, those were the two I shared. The PA said ok clearly that’s off because your pulse just now was 48. YES. THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I’M CONCERNED.

You can see this
morning's spike

For now I’m still not taking the tamoxifen. She said that indeed it can take four to six weeks for the drug to leave, and I’m just now at three weeks. She strongly recommended a stress test, so I’ve pinged my primary care physician for a referral.

Neither the PA or I expect any heart issues to show up; I’ve got no family history to speak of, and I’m in really good shape. But then again, I will never say never again. I also have no family history of melanoma, or breast cancer . . . and here I am.

Yesterday’s run was great: no heart rate spikes, decent times for what was intended to be an easy run and I even did negative splits. I tried running again this morning since we have snow coming later today, which will probably mean no running tomorrow. Within 10 seconds, my heart rate was up to 160. So things are slowly getting better but not fully resolved.

And I'm done

I did not expect side effects from the tamoxifen to kick in at such a low dose. But as I mentioned earlier, I've been having heart rate issues on my runs. Today's run if it can be called that was the worst so far.

I'm training for the next 10K race on November 9 and today's run should have been an easy 7 miles, keeping my pulse nice and low. Everything else felt great: lungs, legs, even the left pec was behaving. Unfortunately even before I finished one mile at a super slow pace, my heart rate spiked to 176.

I've been running with a Garmin for a couple of years, and a FitBit for three years before that so I know how my heart behaves and this? Is not it.

So I'm done with the tamoxifen. I'll take my chances on recurrence without the drug and focus on that 40% risk reduction offered by exercise and weight.