The Strangest Thing, Exercising Is

The strangest thing is happening because of my hardcore exercising now. Just to be clear, before March, if there was something physical to do to help someone, I had breathing problems or back pain. Both were true, but not truly keeping me from lifting a finger. Since being compliant, that has changed, but being labeled as “active” has not. Here’s what I look/sound like after our 4th session:

Two things happened after starting walk/runs:

• I felt great!
• I felt like crap!!

When I felt great, it was really, really good. Deep breaths of the kind of long-lost times were back. I had more energy due to the endorphins coursing through my body. My major skeletal muscles felt alive, not to mention sore – some of them even felt big and strong, like my hammies and butt.

When I felt like crap, I wish I hadn’t started exercising and I became intimately aware of what “the wall” one hits when starting an exercise routine is like. It’s no wonder so many people quit after starting to exercise. The recovery from the first 2 days took almost a week, and even then I was haunted by new symptoms that didn’t suit me well.

I had started to feel more short of breath just walking around the house. Beautiful said I was huffing and snorting while eating. Worst of all, my cough was by far noticeably worse and had some production behind it, too. My bout with hemoptysis Thursday didn’t help my confidence in my lungs any, but things went well yesterday since Big Red didn’t come back and I sprinted the last 10 seconds of the second run of our session, topping out over 10.1mph and covering about 75 yards.

Today, I feel better than I have in years and years. My lungs literally feel like airbags now, rather than the hard rubber or plastic that they have felt like (even while walking) for so long.

We take Mondays off, so it’s back to the asphalt on Tuesday evening. This 5K won’t stand a chance of beating me by the time the end of February rolls around!