As someone who runs fairly slow, I need something to keep me company on the treadmill as the miles draaaaagggg by. I rely a lot on podcasts for my shorter runs and audiobooks on my longer runs to keep me entertained. I also figure that with all of that free time, I might as well make good use of that time. I could use it to entertain myself, learn something new, pick up a new skill — that’s the beauty of reading, right?
I’ve been enjoying a new audiobook, No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline for Success in Your Life. It’s honestly been such a great read because it has motivated me to take action on a few things that I’ve felt a bit stuck on. Some of it is my personal life, some of it is my professional life. I’m feeling a bit listless about my running goals as well.
This comes on the heels of a recent visit to the ER, which was really an escalation from a visit to the urgent care clinic. I spent the better part of an evening with some chest pain, shortness of breath, and neck pain, and when the symptoms didn’t subside I visited the doctor. The shortness of breath got so bad that I was winded walking down the hallway. Walking the length of a few parking spots sucked the life out of me. This was alarming, especially since I run so many races and this has never been a problem for me.
The urgent care clinic stuck a bunch of electrodes all over my body and the resulting EKG didn’t look too hot so they referred me over to the emergency room. After a chest x-ray and some blood work, everything checked out okay. I was still having the same symptoms but since they deemed that I definitely was not going to die anytime soon, they sent me home. I spent the rest of the day pretty much sleeping and woke up the following Monday feeling strangely fine. (Semisonic reference, anyone?)
As I sat in the hospital bed — I wasn’t quite laying down — I felt strange. I felt too young to be there. I was a bit incredulous actually. I felt like I had done everything correctly. I knew early on that I had high cholesterol and that I was in poor physical shape, so I had corrected for it as best as I could by going pescetarian and by trying to get regular exercise. Since 2011 I’ve been running and for a stint I raced triathlons. Most of my stress comes from work but I try to offset that by pursuing a career that I truly enjoy and by transferring into projects and teams that I find truly gratifying. However, I sat there in that hospital bed knowing that if my days were indeed numbered or cut short that I had lived my life to the fullest and would lean in smiling to those single-digit numbers as best as I could.
It’s been two weeks since the incident and I’ve felt fine. My running has been fine. I added some strength training, although I’ve slacked off this past week. Everything seems mostly normal. It seems like nothing actually happened.
Back to the book, though. Since Dopey, things have been pretty relaxed. That’s not a bad thing, I suppose. I’ve considered using the rest of the year to relax into half marathons. I know that I had a goal of running three marathons this year, but that was because I already had one in the bag (Disney World Marathon), and then I had two in the Rock n Roll series that fit my time limit. The part of the book that I got through today says to re-write goals every day. Although I want to still run a Rock n Roll marathon, I’m considering re-writing the goal and trying for a 50K this summer instead – perhaps that would be more fulfilling because it’s a new distance, it’s a trail race (albeit flat), and it’ll be here in Colorado. It’s also a fundraiser and organized by a local ultrarunner, so it may be a nice local race to run this summer.
Amara in Training 