Keeping It Going

  I was texting with a friend about getting into exercise a bit more since they looked like they were about to stop "hard chemo" and move into "easier" maintenance of shorter sessions with some of the harsher parts of the cocktail being removed.

I mentioned the hard part is starting and getting past the inertia.  Which I know from being shelved for a good part of this year and starting to getting back to exercising.   And that will be days where it is a bit difficult, from being tired or otherwise, to get going that day.

 That was one of those days for me today.  Really poor sleep last night - waking up and staring at the ceiling 8-10 times according to my Apple Watch and Garmin.  Plus my back was a little bit tweaky - it was time to change my fentanyl patch.

So when the Guardians/Rays game ended, I extricated myself from the couch.  I wanted to run outside, the weather was nice.  But I knew I was not a 100%.  I checked the weather for Monday.  It is looking good.  So I figured today I will treadmill, will bike tomorrow and run, or maybe even do a short brick on Monday.  Tuesday is my next infusion.

Got on the treadmill, turned on She-Hulk on Disney, and started running.  It didn't take long, about 10 minutes, for me to think it was not a great idea.  But I went to my standard way I have been doing this for the last 5 years.  I have mentioned it before, but figure if this helps someone it is not bad to repeat occasionally.

"Well, if I make 15 minutes, that is not bad."

I hit 15 minutes, not close to a mile on the treadmill read-out, but felt like I would be cheating not doing a mile.  Anyone can do a mile.  Kept on grinding. 25 minutes in, I hit the mile mark.  25 minutes is almost 30 minutes.  So I had to get to 30. I was going a bit quicker.  Plus 45 minutes and 2 miles was possible.  Keep on going.  Kept my HR down in Zone 0/1.  At 47 minutes I hit two miles.  But my HR was ticking up as I went past 30 minutes.  Started hitting Z2.  At the 2 mile mark, started hitting Z3.  

I figured a Z0/Z1 run was out at the point, and try to see how I can do pushing a bit.  The third mile was about 20 minutes.  I really wanted to break a 20 minute pace, so decided to go 4 miles.  I knew 80 minutes was a 20 minute pace.  At 79 minutes, 37 seconds I hit 4 miles.  Pressed stop.  And the credits for the last episode of She-Hulk that I missed started to roll.

Had 24 minutes in Zone 2 and about 12 minutes in Z3 with 3 minutes in Z4.  So it turned into a bit more interval training.  I will go back to being more structured in training the start of November, which gives me plenty of time to train "properly" for my next race.  But I figure shaking off the rust now for a month is fine.  I know each day as I get back into this, I feel better.  And I am politely giving a middle finger to cancer still ;)