Not bad huh? On the other hand , they weren’t exactly quality miles.
My legs and feet felt fine, but my darn lungs really held me back.
Mile one was a breeze, just the usual bronchospasm I always experience climbing that first hill, but a fast recovery.
At the beginning of mile two, which ascends appx 120 ft over a half mile distance, I was able to slowly work myself into a racewalking rhythm. I then accelerated to a sub-7:00 pace and held it for a full 200 meters.
At mile 1.5 , my lungs started to catch up with me and I pretty much gasped my way to the two mile mark. From there I took a 10 minute break to catch my breath and did a little stretching .
Mile three to four was a constant struggle to catch my breath without stopping.
I was able to do a few more short accelerations on the downhill , but each one got increasingly more difficult because of my air-trapping.
Mile four to the end, which climbs to 180 ft , probably did more damage to my body than good. I started sweating profusely, I rarely exceeded 16:00 and was breathing so hard I thought I was going to pass out. All I could think of was ” Thank god it’s almost over.”
When I finally did get home, it took me almost 2 hours to get my breathing under control. Despite being on prednisone and having taken a neb treatment before I left , along with multiple hits off the puffer , my
peak flows went from 500 to 275 in the one hour and eight minutes that I was gone.
Maybe ICU to five miles is in a week, is too much—-even for me!
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