Heading out for the evening walk.
A while back I wrote about some of the night walks we were doing . Well, my partner Douglas liked those night time walks so much , that about 3 weeks ago we started doing something similar on a nightly basis.

No, I’m not trying to turn Douglas into a marathon walker or anything like that. This was totally his idea…I just go along to keep him encouraged. Actually, we both enjoy these evening walks because it affords us time together, while at the same time doing something that’s healthy.

In contrast to my morning training walks, which are much more physically demanding, Id classify these evening walks as more of a casual, pleasurable stroll that we do for fun.The routes are much shorter (2 miles max) and closer to home. They’re also lot more scenic and involve a lot more hill climbing. And because we walk at a really slow pace, I can actually carry on a conversion.

With these evening strolls becoming a part of my regular walking schedule, I’m now putting in a total of 6 to 7 miles per day. That’s a lot of walking, but so far it hasn’t really impacted my breathing, and the extra couple miles are giving Douglas some much needed aerobic exercise in a way that he really seems to enjoy.

I know people lead hectic lives nowadays and don’t have much time for anything, but if they could pull themselves away from the TV for just one hour a day and take a leisurely walk instead, I think it would have a positive impact on their lives as well. Just a thought.

…….Yeah, that’s just about the time I’ll be crossing the finish line at my next race.

For my October race choice, Ive decided to go with the Urban Cow Half marathon, Relay and 5K race.

Held in an area near the state capital of California in Sacramento, the Urban Cow marathon looks like a fun little race. If it’s anything like it’s name, how could it not be?

I’ll be doing the half marathon distance (21km-13.1 miles), though the 2 person relay race looks like a lot of fun too. Hopefully the weather will be nice in the morning. ( Central California temperatures tend to rise quickly during the late summer months).

Some of my racewalking buddies are probably going to be a little ticked at me for not doing the San Jose Rock & Roll half marathon with them ( held the same day), but I really wanted to do a half marathon this year in a smaller venue and a little closer to home. The Urban Cow has a 6,000 person limit for the half marathon, about a third of the size of the San Jose race. It also seems to have more of a local and country flavor to it, which I really like.

Training for the race began for me a week ago with a 7 miler, and will continue for only 4 more weekends. Preparation will consist of long slow distances walks on Saturday mornings followed by short distance racewalking ( 4 miles), 3 times a week.
A month and a half of training is probably not enough time to prepare properly for a fast half marathon distance, but I’m fairly confident it will be sufficient to get me to the finish line in under the time 3.5 hr limit, which is all really all I want.

Btw, This will be my 13th, 13 mile race in 5 years. ( good thing it’s not happening on a Friday the 13th, that would really be freaky!)

I hope I’m not jinxing myself by writing this post, but if you’ve been monitoring my little “days out of the hospital” widget, then you know that this week makes 6 months that I’ve been hospital free **YAY!**

I wouldn’t break out the campaign bottles just yet, as I still have twice as long to go before breaking my own record, but I think it’s a milestone which deserves at least a little recognition.

And to what do I attribute this extended reprieve? I’m not really sure. Most likely, it’s a combination of better dyspnea coping tools (opiate medications, relaxation techniques and exercise), a much better diet (organic with less sugar), less stress, and somewhat better weather this year. It could also be that I’ve just become more stubborn and have raised the bar on what I consider to be hospital worthy exacerbations.

Whatever the reason behind this good fortune, I sure hope it decides to sticks around for a while. Staying out of the hospital is something I could really get used to. Wouldn’t it be something if I could break my all time record of 13 months hospital free?

Of course, being hospital free doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve been symptom free. Most severe asthmatics never reach 100% symptom free status, even for a single day. Still, it’s encouraging to know that Ive gone a half a year without becoming critically ill again. It gives me hope that I still have a lot of good days ahead of me.

Carolyn Scott Kortge’s new book is finally out and guess who’s in one of the chapters?

Carolyn contacted me about year ago for this project. She thought I had an interesting story to tell, and that it would fit in nicely with the motivational theme of the book. It’s really cool to finally see the finished work. She did a great job on it.

Healing Walks for Hard Times, maps a path through life’s difficulties with walks that tap the healing power of movement. She demonstrates how walking can restore momentum in lives that have been jolted by illness, cancer, grief, depression or trauma. With a focus on walking for wellness rather than walking strictly for fitness, it offers a path of resiliency in the steps of a familiar exercise.

More than an exercise guide, Healing Walks for Hard Times acknowledges recovery not only as a physical process, but also as an emotional, spiritual and mental journey—-a journey of Survivorship.

Carolyn lays out a progressive, eight-week walking program that encourages readers to get their feet on the ground and move forward, one step at a time. Included are personal stories from survivors of heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes, chronic pain, natural disaster, and of course severe lung disease, that inspire and reassure. Week by week, walk by walk, readers regain balance and footing on a path that leads to healing, step by step.

Below are a couple of the pages I’m in…….

( Excerpted from HEALING WALKS FOR HARD TIMES by Carolyn Scott Kortge, (c) 2010)
(Published by arrangement with Trumpeter, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston)
(www.Shambhala.com)

I hope you’ll check it out.

Got my finishers certificate and the official results book for the 2010 Boston marathon in the mail today.

Out of the 23,177 people who started the race, only 22,721 actually finished it. And yours truly has the distinction of being the 22,721st person to cross the finish line. In other words…. I finished the race DEAD LAST! (Pretty cool eh?)
I mean if you’re gonna be slow at something, you might as well excel at it, right? But hey, last place or not, I still finished 15 minutes faster than last year. And who knows, maybe I’ll shave yet another 15 minutes off next years race.

( First place— Cheruiyot, Robert Kiprono 2:05:52)

( Last place— Stephen Gaudet 7:17;47)

And in case you’re curious to see what it looks like to come in dead last at the Boston marathon, here’s the last 6 and a half minutes of me doing just that.

Looks like I jumped the gun on this one. After polling my family, friends and doctors, and after reading up on high altitude hiking, Ive decided to heed some good advise for a change and will not be participating in the Mt Evans COPD Challenge hike.

The elevation just makes it too risky for someone with lungs like mine. There’s just too great a chance that I could get really sick. My travel schedule wouldn’t have allowed me enough time to acclimate to the higher elevations of Colorado anyway, so that would have put me at an even greater risk for high altitude complications. I would hate to ruin it for the other participants if something were to happen and I needed to be taken off the mountain for emergency medical care.

To say I’m a little disappointed would be an understatement. I’m the type of person who thrives on mental and physical challenges, so making the decision to withdrawal from this event was tough for me. I was really looking forward to pushing my body to the limits on this one and to see this magnificent mountain range up close and personal. I suppose I’ll just have to get my kicks in a safer , more familiar fashion.

Though maybe not as challenging or as memorable as doing a walk two and a half miles up in the air, later this year I’m planning on doing back to back half marathons ( 4-6 weeks part). I haven’t chosen the exact races yet, but Ive narrowed it down to the San Jose Rock &Roll , the Spirit of Pittsburgh and the Las Vegas half marathons, taking place in October, November and December.
Training for the those races begins for me in less than two weeks.

To the wonderfully wacky people who haven’t chickened out of the Mt Evans Challenge, Good luck up there!

How’s this for a view!

In just a few weeks , if all goes as planned, I hope to be standing on that very same rock with a half a dozen of my COPD friends.

The brainchild of my Boston marathon walking partner Mike Mc Bride, the “COPD Mt Evans Challenge” as he calls it, is simply about a bunch of friends with severe lung disease, getting together for a day and hiking to the summit of one of the tallest mountains in the Rockies of Colorado…. just for the heck of it! No, we’re not going to scale an entire mountain, but we will be walking up the steepest portion of one.

Starting in Idaho Springs,elevation 8,700 ft, we’re gonna drive up the mountain road 9 miles to Summit Lake, which is situated at the 12,800 ft level. From there we’re gonna hike the last 5 miles on foot up to the summit of the mountain, which sits 14,220 ft above sea level. My COPD friends will be using high -flow oxygen @ 15 lpm to make the trek up the mountain I hopefully, will not need supplemental O2, but I’ll be closely monitoring my O2 sats just in case.

As you can see in this photo taken earlier this year during a race up the mountain, the grade along certain portions of the road is pretty steep. The part that we’re gonna be doing, gains approximately 1600 ft in elevation in just over 5 miles.

( Mike Mc Bride and Roxlyn Cole testing out their oxygen equip)

What makes this particular walk such a challenge for me (and for the other lungers), is the altitude and the steepness of the climb.
Excluding being a passenger in a pressurized airplane, this will be the highest altitude my body has ever been exposed to. The last walk I did that involved a mountain, was back in 2008 when I did the ET midnight marathon in the Nevada desert. And while it was a much longer walk ( 13.1 miles) , we only reached a maximum elevation of 5,500 feet during the race. The summit of Mt Evans is almost 3 times higher.

My lungs are not a big fan of climbing hills. I can barely walk uphill the two blocks it takes to reach my house, let alone 5.5 miles up the side of a mountain. Putting the physical challenges aside though, the main reason I wanna do this is, is to take in the sheer beauty of it all. I think Mountains are awesome.

If you’d like to read more, or maybe even join us, check out at Roxlyn Coles blog

Here’s a question Ive been asking myself a lot lately (thanks to a most cool brother);

When it comes to improving my fitness, why should I go through all the pain and sacrifice of exercising my body hard everyday, if I’m gonna continue to throw toxic chemicals into it? Doesn’t make much sense.. does it?

Good old fashioned common sense (which sometimes eludes me), tells me that eating healthy and natural untainted foods, surely must be better you for you than ingesting food that is treated with hormones and pesticides. How could it not?
Convinced that this is not only the right thing to do, but also the wisest, I’ve decided to switch from a conventional diet, to an all Organic one.

Ive already started with fruits and vegetables because they’re easier to find at the local markets. As I get better at doing this, I’ll start including dry and canned goods, and then eventually on to meats and dairy. I’d like to be 90% organic in 3-4 months.

Going Organic is obviously more expensive, but cost shouldn’t be an excuse. I spend $60 on gym fees and $25 for a haircut every month without batting an eye. Why would I even think twice about spending a little extra on something that can only make my life better. Besides, there are informational web tools out there that can help you get the biggest bang for your organic buck… you just have to be a savvy shopper and know what to look for. Remember too, that locally grown food takes less gas to transport it to market, which means less environmental pollution. So there’s a positive impact on more than just ones own body.

Without getting into politics of what’s considered safe and healthy, the turning point for me was this; Why do something only half right? Improving your health requires more than just working out regularly, you also need to fuel and nourish your body with clean natural food.
I love this line by Michael Palin……
“All I ask of food, is that it doesn’t harm me.” (Monty Python’s Flying Circus)

Buon appetito!

Wow…Ive hit the big time! I’m major player now. A force to be reckoned with. At the top of my game. Watch out world, I’m going places now!

So after 5 years, I finally reached the $100 threshold and received my first Google Adsense Payment. That’s a whopping 20 dollars a year. Wow ..I can retire now. Wait a minute …..I’m already retired. OK , well then I’ll take a nice vacation. (just kidding)

Seriously though, I never got into blogging expecting to make money. This little extra ad revenue is just frosting on the cake, and will help defray the cost of hosting this site. Thanks everyone for your continued support.

For 5 years now, I’ve been heralding the benefits of daily exercise in people who have severe lung disease. That message is plastered all over this blog, and I believe is the reason that Ive lived so long. But wait, just as with every other facet of this frustrating disease, there’s a catch 22.
While there’s no argument that exercise can make a huge difference in the lives of people suffering from lung disease, Ive long suspected that too much exercise also carries with it, the potential for some not so pleasant side effects. Namely, dynamic hyperinflation, aka…. air trapping.

Here’s the deal…. if you have an obstructive lung disease and are prone to air-trapping (which is usually the case if you have severe asthma and to a greater degree if you have COPD or Emphysema), you need to be aware that any physical activity that makes you breath faster and deeper for prolonged periods of time, can also cause you to trap more air, which in turn can make your dyspnea worse and can even trigger a serious, life-threatening exacerbation. That’s right, you heard it from the king of asthmatic marathon walkers… If you exert yourself too much for prolonged periods, you can actually make yourself sick(er)…at least in the short term. The severity of ones lung disease and the propensity for air-trapping (as indicated by TLC and FEV1 ), probably adds to the likelihood that these negative side effects will occur. It also appears that this increased “air trapping”, at least in part, contributes to the delayed onset of symptoms that sometimes follows strenuous activity.
(Btw..the symptoms of air -trapping should not be confused with exercise induced asthma, which is totally different).

Now that’s not say that you shouldn’t exercise. In that regard, my message is the same as it’s always been, and that is….If you have asthma or any obstructive lung disease, you need to get out there and exercise your butt off regularly! Just don’t over do it, and always be aware of your breathing pattern.

Oh..and I should also point out, that it doesn’t seem to be how much exercise you do, but rather, how intense the exercise is , that determines how severe the air-trapping will be. If you participate in a sport such as running or jogging ( and yes, that would include racewalking), you’re probably going to be much more prone to developing increased air trapping than you would with regular fitness walking or from milder forms of exercise.

So for me, does this mean I should stop training and/or stop doing marathons? Probably. Will I follow through on my own advise? Probably Not.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bad habit of over do it. But, out of the 19 races Ive completed in the past 5 years, only 2 of those landed me in the hospital. And don’t forget, non-asthmatics end up in hospitals too from “over-doing it” too.

Hey, I’m short of breath 24/7 anyway, so if pushing myself to the brink is what I need to do to really feel alive, then regardless of the consequences, that’s what I’ll do. I’m willing to take that risk because Id rather be sick and feel happy , then to be healthy and feel miserable. Sounds contradictory I know, but it’s really not. We all deal with our afflictions in different ways.

Following up on a previous post, I’m happy to announce that the state RCP board has accepted my RCP renewal application. I now have a valid license to practice Respiratory Care in the State of California. Yah….I’m legal again!

I have no plans on ever returning to the traditional work force as an RT, but there’s definitely a sense of security and satisfaction, knowing that I could if I wanted to.

I’m also considering sitting for the National Asthma Educator Certification exam later this year or next. I already do quite a bit of asthma educating from the sidelines, and having official recognition of that skill would be nice to have.

Just as with the RCP license, becoming a “certified” asthma educator is something I don’t really need to do, rather, it’s something that I want to do.

Just wanted to send good vibes out to my friend and racewalking coach, Dave Mc Govern who will be competing this weekend at the World Cup championships in Chihuahua Mexico. Dave will be doing the 50K race ….that’s 31 miles!

I was checking the local weather report for Chihuahua, and the temperature for the 50K at race time on Saturday morning is expected to be 70 degrees F, and heating up to 89 degrees later in the day. Yikes.. that’s pretty warm weather to be doing a 31 mile racewalk in, but if anyone can do it, Dave can. Luckily the relative humidity is supposed to below at 25%.

Ray Sharp (50K) , Dave McGovern (50K), Trevor Barron (10K Junior),DanSeriani(20K),JonathonMatthews(50K),MaryanneDaniel(MedicalStaff),AlexChavez(10K Junior), Solomiya Logan (20K),Tyler Sorensen (10K Junior), Patrick Stroupe (20K), Jolene Moore (Junior Coach), Philippe Gonzalez (Head Coach)

Good luck to all of our racewalkers !