Training

My basic training pattern these days is a day of walking mixed with jogging, followed by a day or two of only walking. That's my version of alternating hard days with easy days.

A little over a month ago, I did a workout of increasingly longer jogging intervals, up to 5 minutes, and then back down, for a total of 29 minutes of jogging. That was very encouraging.

Shortly after that, my endurance began to wane. I could barely get to 3 minutes on my jogging days, then barely to 2, then 1... I was prepared for training plateaus, but this was a definite step back.

A few Sundays ago (July 17), Jan and I did 31 one-minute jogging intervals. It was a PTPR in terms of total jogging time, total workout time, and total mileage. But if I didn't start getting my endurance back, I wouldn't be running a 5K any time soon.

What was going on? I don't know. My doctor was not very interested, either. A stem cell transplant patient who is walking and jogging about an hour a day is in better shape than the rest of her patients, almost all of her colleagues, and herself, so it's hard for her to be concerned about it.

My diminished endurance coincided with going off my immunosuppressant drug and letting my new immune system go to work hunting down the traces of leukemia found in my previous biopsy. My theory is that a lot of internal work was going on and sapping energy, similar to how you sometimes feel lethargic before the other symptoms of an immune system in battle mode — fever, aches, congestion — manifest themselves. I never had those other symptoms, but there's plenty of reason to think my immune system was busy. We certainly hope that's been going on.

A couple of days after my discouraging accomplishment of 31-minutes-of-jogging-in-1-minute-intervals workout, I bounced back with a pyramid of jogging (and walking) that had a 4-minute jog in the middle: 1 2 2 2 3 2 4 3 3 2 2 2 1. A couple of days later, I did a "speed" workout of 10 one-minute runs. It felt great, but resulted in my third strained calf of my recovery, so I had to take quite a few days of walking only. Lesson (finally) learned — no hills, no fast running.

This past Sunday (July 31), Jan and I jogged some 1-, 2-, and 3-minute intervals, for a total of 32 minutes of jogging. Another PTPR!

We're still waiting on the results of my July 22 biopsy, to see if my new immune system tracks down the lingering leukemia. I feel good, for what's that worth.