I was on well on my way to setting a personal best, when at mile 21, I slipped on some wet paper cups, did a full summer salt, cut my finger open and tore a ligament in my knee. It took me almost 2 hours in excruciating pain to limp the last 5 miles of the race , but at least I finished. Jon Robertson my spotter ( bless his heart), bent the rules a little and stayed with me on the course right through the finish chute. In the end, despite the time I lost as a result of my little acrobatic maneuver, I still managed to finish the race 12 min faster than last year.

Hey, it wasn’t all bad. The spectators really out did themselves this year. Imagine experiencing this scene for 7 hours. My hands are raw from from having them high5′d so many times.

Thank you everyone for your support and well wishes. I’ll have a more complete race report up in a few days.

PS….Thank you Kerri, I just saw my Facebook Fan page. Naughty naughty..:-)

PPS…It was nice meeting you Chris and Laura!

So in just a few hours Bib# 21619 is off to the Boston area to take another stab at the mother of all foot races. Monday morning I will attempt to finish my 3rd Boston marathon in a row and my 8th full marathon since starting this incredible fitness journey 5 years ago.

May not sound like a big deal to walk a marathon,but put in perspective; only 1% of the population will ever walk or run a marathon in their lifetime, and most of those people will be totally healthy. The number of people who have completed 7 or more marathons is astronomically small. So, even if I don’t finish the race this year, I’m still ahead of the game.

Btw, Y’all know that the Boston marathon doesn’t actually start in Boston, right? It finishes in Boston, but it actually starts 26.2 miles away in a quaint little New England town called Hopkinton. For the last 115 years on Patriots day, the towns’ population explodes with tens of thousands of some of the fastest runners in the world as they gather at athletes village to make their way to Boston. Some will finish the 26.2 mile course in less than 2 and a quarter hours.

And then there’s me……..
In 2010 , I became the last official finisher to cross the finish line. Out of the 22,672 people who completed the race, I came in dead last! In other words, I finished up in 22,672nd place.
Don’t ya just love it!

But regardless of how the race turns out, I probably wouldn’t be here at all if weren’t for the help of some generous and caring individuals. So let me take this opportunity to thank in advance, the officials at the BAA and my support crew, affectionately known as Team Wheezy . Helping me out again this year are Tom of Caire Inc, plusJon and Chris from the BAA. Jon and Chris will be spotting for me on bike and Tom will be providing logistical support on the course as well as transportation to and from the event. As a disabled athlete, I’m also allowed to have someone accompany me on the course, but this year I will be doing the race alone.

I also wanna thank some of the folks that contributed behind the scenes…. The wonderful folks at the Runningwarehouse for providing me with the shoes I’ll be wearing during the race, the very generous people at Rabbitair for providing me with clean air in my home, so that I could stay healthy while trained for the race, the Sony corporation for providing me with a bunch of their portable music players, which came in handy during those long training walks, to and to Microlife for providing me with the state of the art peak flow meters. Last, but not least, my Pulmonologist and dear friend, Sally Wenzel for supporting my fitness endeavors, no matter how extreme they might me.

While in Boston for the marathon, I’m also going to be participating in a medical study for runners over the age of 40 who take statin drugs (statin drugs are used to treat high cholesterol). The study is titled “The effects of chronic statin therapy on markers of skeletal and cardiac muscle damage in Marathon runners”.
They’ll be drawing my blood before and after the race and then a 3rd time 24 hrs later. After the study is complete, they’ll send me a detailed report of my lab results, including Lipid Panel, Liver Function Test, Muscle Myoglobin, CK Isoenzymes, Hemoglobin and Hematocrit and Cardiac Troponins. It’s basically a bunch of tests I need done anyway, so might as well contribute to science and get paid at the same time ($100 if you complete the study):-)

As far as the lungs go, I’ll pre-medicate with the usual bronchodilators. I’ll also have my portable neb with me on the course, along with a couple of epipens and a pocketful of inhalers. The riskiest time for me is usually not during the race, but afterward. The symptoms I experience in the hours immediately preceding the race will dictate how severe the flare will be. There’s really no way for me to stop or prevent a flare from occurring after exerting myself to this extent, but to increase my chances of keeping the flare at manageable levels, I’ll up pred to 50 mg the day before the race and then rapidly taper.

Depending how the day goes, I’ll try to post or tweet. If you’re dying to know how I’m doing, you can follow my progress via the AT&T athlete program. My bib# is 21619 (Not sure it will work if you live outside the US)

Rather than rehash what Ive already been documenting on Dailymile for the last 4 months, I’ll just cut to the chase. I’ve successfully completed ALL of my training for my 3rd Boston marathon, BUT I’m not feeling very confident that I will actually finish the race this time.

While I’m definitely in much better shape (both physically and mentally) than I was 14 weeks ago and certainly capable of completing another marathon, my right foot is probably going to prevent that from happening this time around. I have a pretty nasty metatarsalgia in the ball of my right foot (inflammation of the 2nd metatarsal head), which has been bothering me a lot during my training walks. The pain generally kicks in after a few miles and gets gradually worse the farther I go. If the 21 miler I did a few weeks ago is any indication how my foot will hold up during a full marathon, it’s a sure bet I won’t finish the race.

Still, I have no plans to withdraw or cancel my trip to Boston. My lungs have been doing great the past week and I have way too much pain and sweat invested in this to back out before I even make it to the starting line. I may not be able to finish the entire race, but I plan to be there in Hopkinton with my friends on Patriots day and will complete as much of the 26.2 mile course as I can.
To increase my odds of success, I’ll be in total rest mode starting today until race day, which is 10 days from now. Who knows, maybe that will be enough time for my foot to at least partially heal.

Without even touching on the breathing or asthma implications in all this, training to run or walk a marathon is hard, and the older you get, the harder it becomes. This is a risky business and no matter how many precautions you take, s**t happens. The body wasn’t designed to withstand the constant and grueling pounding of pavement with an impact force of twice your body weight. Eventually it’s gonna catch up with you. When that happens, you can either give up and call it quits, or you can pick yourself up, make some adjustments, and continue on. I think the fact that I’ve come as far as I have, considering the obstacles I face, is because I believe in myself 100% and I’m truly passionate about everything I get involved in. I may not be a natural born athlete, but how many people do you know with severe lung disease that have completed 7 full marathons, including the Boston marathon, not once, but twice! And all within a 5 year span.

So yeah, I’m proud of myself for making it this far. If it turns out I finish the race…great! If not, no big deal.

That truly is one beautiful bridge

Look Ma…No headphone wires….
The kind folks at Sony asked this walk man if he would share his opinion about their Walkman!
I’m referring to the Sony Walkman W series wireless MP3 player.

First of all, you should know that I practically live in headphones and an MP3 player. Listening to music is as much a part of my walking, as the physical workout itself. It gets worse than that though. You see, I’m somewhat of an audio nerd as well. I’m extremely finicky when it comes to the actual quality of the sound that reaches my eardrums. You might remember that before I went into medical field, I worked as a recording/sound engineer.. an audiophile if you will. Whether I’m listening to music on a home audio system, at a live concert , or during my workouts on my Mp3 player, I want to feel the music. I want to hear the full range sound, from crisp highs to resonating lows and punchy bass.

The Walkman W series MP3 system, is basically a set of headphones that have an Mp3 player built right into them. Amazingly, they were able to cram all the standard MP3 function controls into such a tiny little package. Pretty cool actually. What you have here is a no frills 2gb player that hooks over your ears kinda like the way Blue-tooth receivers do, so no need for headphone wires.
When not in use, the two ear pieces come together via magnets to form the shape of a heart…..Ahhh aint that cute

Now I’m not exactly a follow- the-instruction manual kinda guy, but getting the thing going was a piece of cake. After a fairly straight forward set up, transfer of music files and examination of where the controls were located, I put the buds in my ears and headed out for a 8 miler.

I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised. The unit does exactly what it’s suppose to do…It stay in your ears while you’re running, jogging… or in my case, racewalking! It actually felt weird at first not having any wires to fiddle with it. You just put the earbuds in your ears, turn it on and forget about it. No more getting tangled up in wires or accidentally having an earbud yanked out of your ear when you pull your arms back too close to your body(which is something you do a lot of when you racewalk.)
The unit is also water resistant, but I didn’t get to check that claim out, as I barely broke a sweat during the 2 hour walk.

My only real complaint, is that there is no sound equalizer or audio presets on the unit ( I mean where would you put them?). I’m not sure what the actual specs are, but I found the sound to be kinda metallic and mid-rangy. Again, I’m an audio nerd and most people probably wouldn’t even notice this. I will say however, that in my opinion, the audio quality of this Walkman is better than the Ipod nano.

So overall I like this cordless Walkman, or should I say, I like concept behind it. I wish the audio quality was a little more to my standards, but I’m totally impressed with the rest of the design, that for the most part, works very well and looks kinda cool too. Sony is definitely on the right track with this one. I think future models will be even better.

If you’re looking for a music player that will stay in your ears while you’re on the move, give these babies a test run. Sony is offering a special discount through this link.
Happy training!!

Disclaimer, I was provided with this product free of charge in exchange for reviewing it.

With almost 2 hours to kill in between medical appointments last week over at UCSF, I decided to put that otherwise wasted time to good use and do something Ive always wanted to…. I racewalked the Kezar stadium!

That’s right…. I racewalked 5.5 miles around the track, and I did it while wearing jeans and a button up shirt. You should have seen the stares I got. Hey, I have no shame. I’d racewalk in my underwear if I thought I could get a way with it. Not since my little racewalking for science experiment back in 2007, have I had so much fun during a medical appointment day.

Not sure why I didn’t do this sooner. Ive walked past this stadium a hundred times on my way up the hill to the hospital. I guess I felt a bit strange about combining a racewalk workout with a medical appointment, especially an appointment with lung doctor. Or maybe it’s just the weird juxtaposition of the two places. One representing illness and suffering, the other sport and pleasure. After all, the reason I come here UCSF in the first place, is because I have severe breathing problems. Wonder what their reaction would be if I told them, “Oh….and while I was waiting to see you today about my worsening dyspnea, I did 22 laps on the Kezar track”.

Yeah, that would go over real well.

UCSF medical center [in the upper right background] is situated just 2 blocks above the historic Kezar Football stadium. The former home of the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers, Kezar stadium now hosts amateur and recreation sports leagues, as well as numerous San Francisco high school football games. The outdoor stadium has a beautifully maintained 400 track, perfect for a racewalking nerds like me. I’m sure a lot of the medical students and staff at UCSF use this track for their own workouts, so why shouldn’t their patients…. even their respiratory patients ? Hey if aerobic exercise isn’t useful in maintaining good health, I don’t know what is.

I knew that jumping into a marathon training regime on the heals of a methadone detox wasn’t gonna be easy, and boy was I right. These first few weeks have been really tough and I haven’t even gotten into the longer distances yet. It’s bad enough that Ive had to shorten my training schedule to accommodate my crappy lungs, but now I’m dealing with some GI problems which complicates matters ( more about that later).

This past Saturday I did my first 20 km (12.2 miles) training walk in a year. My lungs held up pretty good during the 3 hour workout with only some minimal delayed asthma flaring the following day, but somehow I managed to get myself majorly over-heated and dehydrated. My heart rate, which is normally in the 70′s after I finish this type of walk, was in the 130′s when I got home. And when I weighed myself, I was down 2.5 lbs just from fluid loss. How stupid can I get. I just wasn’t prepared for the warmer than expected temperatures in San Francisco that day ( 72 degree at the end of the walk). I was way over-dressed and didn’t carry enough water.

To add to the fun, about 15 km into the walk ,my Metatarsalgia starting kicking in big time and I was forced to walk on the outer edge of my foot for the last 5 kilometers. I had this same type foot pain last year, but back then it didn’t start bothering me until after 30kms, so this is not an encouraging sign.

But wait! It’s not all doom and gloom. I must be doing something right, because so far this training season, Ive had no knee, IT band, hip flexor, calf muscle or shoulder pain during or after any of my walks. That’s a huge improvement over last year and the only thing I can attribute it to is a healthier diet .

The bulk of my long distance training walks (which is the core of my endurance building and the most critical part of marathon preparation ), is still ahead of me and won’t occur until the end of this month and into March. That’s when I’ll have a better sense as to whether I’ll be able to finish all of the training and /or the actual race itself. If I’m not “feelin it” by mid March, I’d probably be better off withdrawing from the race. I get sick at the drop of a hat now, and if I push myself too much, that’s exactly what will happen.

In the meantime I have a bunch of medical appointments I have to work around, including an ultrasound of my abdomen tomorrow to figure out what’s going on with my gut and all the bloating Ive been having. I also have to figure out a way to prevent my foot pain from getting worse, while at the same time still being able to use it to walk on it. (Ahh.. the joys of training for a marathon) .

I leave you with a couple phone pics I took during my walk this weekend. I’m so lucky to have this place as my workout gym.

New for this year I’m introducing a new a feature I call “USE ME”, where I answer your questions relating to respiratory therapy, asthma, lung disease, fitness walking or just about anything else you think I might be able to answer in the form of a blog post. The only caveat being that I can’t diagnosis specific medical medical conditions.

What makes me such a know it all in these areas?

Well, I’m a licensed and registered respiratory therapist of 33 years, a life-long severe asthmatic, a sought after lab rat and a 7 time marathoner finisher. I’m also pretty good at explaining medical/technical things in a way that non-medical people can understand.

So cmon, what are you waiting for. Take advantage of me, pick my brain…USE ME !!! I’m sure there are questions you’ve always wanted to ask . No question is too silly.

You can write me privately with your questions or leave them in the comment section. I’ll try to answer as many as I can and post them here on a bi-monthly basis.

Incidentally ….Do you know what the most common Google search phrases are that brings people to my site? #1 is “Hospital Bills” followed by “Recovering from severe asthma exacerbation” And lastly ” Can you have a high O2 sat during an asthma flare? ( Of course you can, asthma is a disease of the airways, not the alveoli). The most searched image from my blog is a photo of me gorked out on Propofol while on the ventilator.Go figure

Not sure the title of this post applies, since Ive already succeeded at this two times already, but it has a nice positive ring to it and it puts me in a good mood. So after months of contemplation and a series of decent test walks , Ive decided to take a 3rd shot at the grand daddy of all races !

OK I admit it, I’m an adrenalin junkie. I like it all. I like the preparation, I like the anticipation, I like the crowds, I like the excitement, I like everything that goes along with doing a big marathon… (except of course the pain afterward). I like anything that takes me out of my crappy breathing/ self pity zone, even if for just a few hours. Working hard towards a goal like this gives me reason to get up in the morning.

I’m not kidding myself, this will not be an easy undertaking. My lung function and tolerance for long distance speed walking is at an all time low. I missed out on 2 races last year due to hospitalizations and my FEV1 is 5% lower at 36%. Finishing this race, or even making it to the starting line, will the be one of the biggest challenges Ive ever set for myself, but this something that I really want to shoot for.

Training for Boston is always harder than the other marathons, because doing a spring race means preparing during the winter. Thankfully we don’t get snow storms or blizzards here in the San Francisco bay area, but we get tons of fog, and our fair share of freezing temperatures and rainy days, all of which tend to have a really negative effect on my breathing. Still, I think this is what toughens you up for the big day. If nothing goes wrong ( yeah , right), I will train a total of 11 weeks or 55 training days.
This year, more will be less. I’m pretty good in the short distance already, so I’m reserving most of my energy and breath on the longer hauls.

Now I’m sure a few of my friends and family are going to think I’m totally insane for wanting to do another marathon, but they also know that it’s pretty much pointless to try and talk me out of it. The last few months have been incredibly difficult for me, and if dreaming big and getting a little reckless is what it takes to get past those bad times, then I think the cause is worthy. If I succeed in pulling this off, it will make my 8th full marathon and 3rd straight Boston in just 5 years. There aren’t too many people on the planet who can say that.

As in previous years, I’ll be in starting the race along side the other mobility impaired athletes in Hopkinton, Massachusetts at 9am on April 18th. I have the option of bringing a 2 person crew along with me on the course . I’m unable to pay for expenses, but if anyone out there is going to be in Boston on that day anyway, and would like to do the race with me, drop me a line. ( As of this posting, one of the positions as already been filled).

I’d also like to take time now to thank the kind folks at Runningwarehouse.com for their support in providing me with shoes and other racing apparel for the Boston marathon. If you’re looking for running shoes or specialty shoes, these guys are awesome. ( Use the link on my sidebar for a special discount).

[Someone held this sign up at last years race... I Love it!]

Just found out that my story is appearing in the RCB’s annual Newsletter…. “Breathing Matters”.

I’m always flattered when an organization or a person writes an article about my fitness walking achievements, but this one is special because it comes from the same government agency that regulates Respiratory Care in the State of California where I live, and who issued the very license I hold to practice Respiratory Therapy.

I’m certainly not the only asthmatic RCP out there, there are a lots us out there who know what it’s like to be on both ends of the stethoscope. I know this for a fact, because Ive worked with many of them over the years. Heck, some have actually taken care of ME as a patient in the hospital at one time or another (and Thank you by the way). Perhaps my story will inspire some of them to take up fitness walking or maybe tackle a marathon someday, or maybe even share my story with some of their rehab patients.

My message is simple, don’t let lung disease ruin your life. Fight it every step of the way and include exercise in your daily life.

Oh… and one last thing, Respiratory Therapists are very cool people!

Who hoo…scored!

Remember the Asics Hyperspeed II and III’s that I had, but couldn’t make up my mind as to which ones to wear at last years Boston Marathon? Well, as much as I wasn’t too crazy for the lime green color, those Hyperspeed II’s were probably the most comfortable racing flats I’d ever worn. They actually got me through my first Boston marathon in 2009 without a single blister. The Hyperspeed III’s weren’t too bad either, but most current model, the Hyperspeed IV., totally sucks. The new red color and the new style of the shoe is nice and all, but they fit totally different and seem to wear out twice as fast.

Asics, as with all other big shoe companies who cater to mostly non-athletic consumers, stopped making the green Hyperspeed II’s after a very short production run. It’s been really hard to find a pair…. even on the secondary market. Occasionally I’ll stumble upon an odd leftover pair, but they’re usually in a weird size like a 4 or a 13.
So anyway, a couple of weeks ago, totally out of the blue, I get this item alert from Ebay! A running club had just listed a brand new surplus pair in my exact size. I snapped them up for $50 and change…a bargain. Unfortunately, they only had that one pair or I would have bought out their entire inventory.

Not sure yet if I’ll be able to walk anymore marathons with my current lung function the way it is, but if I do, I’m gonna need some shoes I can depend on. These ones are tried and true.

Imagine the look of horror on my face when I went to the Boston marathon website a few weeks ago to register for next years race and saw this….

How could this be? How could they have sold out all 25,000 slots in 8 hours?

At first I thought… is this a spoof or something? How could the race sell out in one day?
But that’s exactly what happened. I confirmed it with the race director Dave Mc Kilvary. The Boston marathon sold out in 8 hours and 3 minutes…Incredible!

I think a lot of people , including myself, were caught off guard and not really worried about registering on opening day, because last years race didn’t sell out until mid February. But,I guess the growing popularity of this race, and marathon running in general,caught the promoters by surprise. Add to that the ability to rapidly spread word about opening day of registration though social media outlets, and Bam , you have a selling frenzy! But 8 hours? c’mon.

To put this into perspective, most popular marathons of this size often take several months to sell out, and some never sell out. What makes this even more astonishing, is that this is the only race in the world in which the entrants have to qualify in order to get in. If you think that’s easy, consider this… a 33 year old man would have to run a qualifying race in under 3 hours and 10 minutes in order to even register for Boston. But that’s not all; assuming that you were lucky enough to achieve a qualifying time, that qualifying time is only good for about 18 months. This means that some of the people who qualified for the 2011 race, but who didn’t get in, will have to re-qualify by doing yet another race in order to register for Boston 2012. That’s gonna piss off a lot of people.

And what about me? Am I screwed? Well, thankfully, I was able to get in contact with the head of registration, Barbara Sicuso, who is also in charge of the mobility impaired division. As an impaired athlete with a qualifying time from last year’s race, she was able to reserve a spot for me and will mail me a paper application.

So after all the fuss and worrying about not getting into the race, it dawned on me….do I even want to do the race ? I’m really not sure my body can handle the training required to do another marathon. Maybe Ive forgotten just how bad this last exacerbation was. How it was one of the worst Ive ever had, and how it’s taken a lot of out me. With my lung function the way it is and my body getting weaker, would I really be able to pull this off for a 3rd time? Do I really wanna put myself though this again? To be honest, I don’t know right now, but at least I have the luxury of knowing that if I wanna get into the race, I can….which is something I really needed to hear .

I hope to come to a decision in the next few weeks.

October has traditionally been a bad month for my asthma (and I’m sure I’m not alone on that), but this is the first time Ive been sick for most of September as well. No doubt about it… this has been a humdinger of a flare.

Ive been out of the hospital for an entire month now, and I still don’t feel like I’m any where near back to my old self. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if I ever will. This last exacerbation could very well have been the straw that broke the camels back. Maybe my luck has finally run out. Maybe this disease has finally caught up to me. We won’t go there just yet, but it’s a reality that I know I’m gonna have to face eventually.

Besides the physical discomfort of being constantly short of breath and just feeling worn out in general, lately I find myself getting emotionally upset over the silliest little things. It’s like all of my senses are on overload. I feel like I’m in a state of perpetual road-rage or something. I have no patience for anything or anyone. I lash out at the slightest provocation. This is not normal for me and I don’t like it.

At first I thought all this bitchiness was due to the steroids, but I haven’t been on high doses for a couple of weeks now. My doctor thinks I’m exhibiting the classic signs of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), probably caused from the intubation incident in the hospital. Whatever it is, I gotta get past it, because between my breathing problems and all this emotional turmoil, it’s making it doubly difficult for me to recover.

I just want all my friends to know that despite these difficult times, that I’m doing my best to maintain a positive outlook and that I’m trying to take things one day at a time. My blogging frequency might drop a little until I get a better handle on what’s going on with my health, but I’ll try to keep my sidebar updates current.

In the meantime, keep those Halloween guesses coming in. Only 10 days left until I announce the winner.

Oh, and Ive also been getting reports that this blog might be haunted. Has anyone seen anything peculiar on my blog lately? I think this whole Halloween thing is going to peoples heads.

You train hard and wait months in anticipation to accomplish a goal you’ve been aiming for, and then BAM! ….in a matter of hours, a severe asthma flare erases it all.
Sadly, it looks like I’m not going to be able to do next weekend’s “Urban Cow Half Marathon”.

To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. Had I been able to do this race as planned, it would have been my 13th- 13.1 miler (half marathon), in just 5 years. That would have been very cool.

I was hoping that I might be able to pull off a last minute save and squeak through this race like Ive done in others in the past, but this last exacerbation did a bigger number on me than I thought and recovery has been excruciatingly slow. I’m just too short of breath and out of shape right now to walk 13 miles. Doing so would be reckless and stupid. I’d end up back in the slammer again for sure.

It’s not so much the missing out on the event itself that bothers me, as it is the wasted time and effort that went into the preparation of it. Many of the races I do are planned 4-6 months in advance. Time and physical well being are precious commodities to me and I hate wasting them. A crystal ball would sure be nice, wouldn’t it?

My next scheduled race, if I decide to do it, isn’t for another 6 months ( Boston Marathon). But who knows, maybe another race will pop-up before then in which everything clicks for a change. I think that would more than make up for this weeks disappointment.

On a brighter note, Ms Kerri finished her very first 10K race. I’m very proud of her for tackling her fears and going for it. You go girl!

I actually had something else prepared for this weeks post, but since there’s a good chance I’ll be heading to the slammer shortly, I thought Id do a quick update on what’s been happening.

If you’ve been watching my sidebar lately you probably noticed that my numbers have been all over the place. Ive been flaring for about a week now. On Thursday I bumped my pred up to 60 mg, and by the time the weekend rolled around I was starting to feel better. Since Sunday night though, and despite being on high dose pred, I’m started to get tight again. For the first time in more than 6 months, I woke up in my red zone. My sats are starting to drop as well and my joints are starting to ache, which is usually an indication that my CO2 is rising. In other words, I’m getting pooped out from breathing.

Not sure of the trigger this time, if any. It could be the season change. September and October have historically been bad months for my lungs. Ive also been really run down lately with a lot of muscle pain and difficulty sleeping, not sure what that’s about.

As luck would have it , my asthma started flaring at a time when I should have been wrapping up my training for my next scheduled race , which is only 2 weeks out. The 11 mile training walk that I did last week, which was supposed to be the longest and the most important training walk for this race, turned out to be a total disaster. Everything went wrong. I got way over heated, had constant GI problems, and my legs and shoulder muscles were throbbing in pain. My shoulder muscles hurt so bad during the last 3 miles, that I seriously considered catching a taxi cab the rest of the way.
I’m gonna give it one more shot later this week if I’m feeling better, but if that walk fails or I’m still sick or hospitalized, I’ll have to withdraw from the race.

In other news, I turned 56 this week( thanks everyone for all the greetings on Facebook), and on Saturday I withdrew from an Italian language class I was taking. It’s an advanced class and I just wasn’t prepared (and wasn’t feeling well). I’ll attempt it again in the winter semester.

Monday morning as I write this post, I’m holding my own, but if my numbers don’t turn around real quick, or if my O2 sats keep dropping, I’m gonna have to take my own advise and get my butt to the hospital. If by chance I do end up in the slammer today, I’ll try to get word out about my status

It sucks to have to write a post like this. Thanks for sticking by me.

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 all time 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.