March 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

PastorVincent wrote: »

A new reason to have to run was anouced...

LG's SnowWhite is like a Keurig for ice cream
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/12/lg-snowwhite-ice-cream-maker-keurig/

Is there something wrong with me if that looks gross to me? I'm thinking of the stuff supposedly growing in improperly cleaned Keurigs and now we're putting a cold (ie. no high temperatures to kill the gunk) dairy product in it. But the rest of you, feel free to enjoy!

Biked today with my kid (to the mall, for McNuggets, which strangely aren't as gross to me in Europe), then took a break for lunch, ran with him to school and kept going for 15 km. It was hard at the beginning but got nicer as I kept going. Now to get some work done before an evening work meeting that I've been dreading, but hopefully will resolve some things.

Spoiler: view from the bike trail, and cheese. Mmmmm...

I never met an ice cream I didn't like....

March Goal: Shut up and move

3/1 Went to my first ever St. David's Day Party
3/2 3.13
3/3 stuff
3/4 4.00
3/5 rest
3/6 3.00
3/7 snorkel 3.5 hours
3/8 3.35
3/9 3.00
3/10 rest
3/11 3.00
3/12 3.50
3/13 rest
3/14 funk
3/15 3.00
3/16 2.00
3/17 6.50
3/18 rest
3/19 2.20
3/20 rest
3/21 3.30

Total: 39.98

The Keurig ice cream thing sets off my skeeve factor. Can you say salmonella? I knew you could...("Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" reference for those non-USAers....). But it does remind me that I mixed up a batch of strawberry ice cream last night and need to put it in the churn later today....

Races:
BIIMA 10k 3/17/19 6.50

Ticker is my goal for 2019 and progress to date:

I've been terribly busy the last couple of days, so am way behind on the posts. I'll try to catch up later...at least skim through them. I'll apologize in advance for this long post.

I wanted to let you all in on a secret. I have literally been scared of running since a doctor's visit I had in January. Last year, after I had an echo-cardiogram to see how my bicuspid valve/heart murmur were doing, I was told my aorta was slightly dilated and I would need to repeat the echo in a year. Okay. No big deal. Right? Well, when I went back in January and we were discussing having the echo repeated, the word aneurysm was used. What? Aren't those usually fatal?! I remained calm and pretended that I had known all along that a dilated aorta was an aneurysm. Fast forward a few weeks. I had the repeat echo which showed that the aneurysm had grown 3 cm, so I was referred to a heart specialist. At that point I asked about exercising and was told that running was fine with no activity restrictions.

But, I broke the cardinal rule of health problems and googled it. Everything I saw said that if they grow 3 cm in a year, it has a chance of bursting or leaking and is a candidate to be fixed...open heart surgery. I did go ahead and run, but every little pain in my back or chest or jaw or anywhere was a matter of concern. I was thinking the worst.

I saw the specialist about a month ago. He told me that the echo was not the best test to determine the size or growth rate of an aneurysm. A CT Scan is more definitive. He again assured me that since I wasn't presenting any symptoms, like shortness of breath or being really tired, that I was okay to exercise, just no heavy lifting....such as "trying to bench press a car." I did feel better that we didn't know the true size of it to begin with, but, upon reflection, it was also a bad thing. What if it was bigger? We didn't know for sure. (I have to say that I am NOT normally someone who thinks the worst of a situation. This was new territory for me.)

I forced myself to carry on, but did a lot more walking than I did running and when I did run, I tried to make sure I didn't get my heart rate up really high, just in case. I did manage to run/walk 3.5 miles last Saturday, but I was slower than that slow thing going slowly I've heard about.

Fast forward again to yesterday. I had the CT scan, which was an experience itself. I saw the specialist this morning for the results. It was a great report. The aorta is 4.6 cm...I think normal is something like 3.5. However, he said they don't consider it to be a candidate for surgery until it reaches about 5.5 cm. The plan going forward is to have another CT scan in 6 months to see if there is any growth. If none he will check again every year. I guess if there is growth, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I did ask AGAIN about running. He said running would be great as controlling my blood pressure is the best thing I can do for it. So, here's to at least 6 months of fear free running! It also gives me extra motivation to keep it up and to lose a little weight. All support is greatly appreciated!

quilteryoyo wrote: »

I've been terribly busy the last couple of days, so am way behind on the posts. I'll try to catch up later...at least skim through them. I'll apologize in advance for this long post.

I wanted to let you all in on a secret. I have literally been scared of running since a doctor's visit I had in January. Last year, after I had an echo-cardiogram to see how my bicuspid valve/heart murmur were doing, I was told my aorta was slightly dilated and I would need to repeat the echo in a year. Okay. No big deal. Right? Well, when I went back in January and we were discussing having the echo repeated, the word aneurysm was used. What? Aren't those usually fatal?! I remained calm and pretended that I had known all along that a dilated aorta was an aneurysm. Fast forward a few weeks. I had the repeat echo which showed that the aneurysm had grown 3 cm, so I was referred to a heart specialist. At that point I asked about exercising and was told that running was fine with no activity restrictions.

But, I broke the cardinal rule of health problems and googled it. Everything I saw said that if they grow 3 cm in a year, it has a chance of bursting or leaking and is a candidate to be fixed...open heart surgery. I did go ahead and run, but every little pain in my back or chest or jaw or anywhere was a matter of concern. I was thinking the worst.

I saw the specialist about a month ago. He told me that the echo was not the best test to determine the size or growth rate of an aneurysm. A CT Scan is more definitive. He again assured me that since I wasn't presenting any symptoms, like shortness of breath or being really tired, that I was okay to exercise, just no heavy lifting....such as "trying to bench press a car." I did feel better that we didn't know the true size of it to begin with, but, upon reflection, it was also a bad thing. What if it was bigger? We didn't know for sure. (I have to say that I am NOT normally someone who thinks the worst of a situation. This was new territory for me.)

I forced myself to carry on, but did a lot more walking than I did running and when I did run, I tried to make sure I didn't get my heart rate up really high, just in case. I did manage to run/walk 3.5 miles last Saturday, but I was slower than that slow thing going slowly I've heard about.

Fast forward again to yesterday. I had the CT scan, which was an experience itself. I saw the specialist this morning for the results. It was a great report. The aorta is 4.6 cm...I think normal is something like 3.5. However, he said they don't consider it to be a candidate for surgery until it reaches about 5.5 cm. The plan going forward is to have another CT scan in 6 months to see if there is any growth. If none he will check again every year. I guess if there is growth, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I did ask AGAIN about running. He said running would be great as controlling my blood pressure is the best thing I can do for it. So, here's to at least 6 months of fear free running! It also gives me extra motivation to keep it up and to lose a little weight. All support is greatly appreciated!

Hugs.

No idea if this will help. I'm a radiographer and we see dilated aorta's ALL THE TIME. Many many people are running around (pun intended) and dont even know they have them. They are mostly shown as an incidental finding on images. so totally not something to worry about.

Biggest and best advice I give to ANYONE is NEVER EVER GOOGLE (definitly a do as I say, not as I do situation, i'm the worst googler) because you only see worst case scenarios. People dont talk about normal, because, well they are normal. nothing exciting in the normal. Anythign unusual though, that gets a lot of screen time.

Keep running, its good for you in sooo many ways. and please ignore google. its awful.

Ok... It is 1.49am, I'm meant to get up and run in 4 hours... But I'm sat here hacking up my lungs! Coming up on 2 weeks of this bloody cold that my kids so kindly shared with me! Anyone got any tried and tested cure for annoying tickly coughs?!