This last spring my sister challenged me to run a half marathon with her in the fall. It was 19 weeks away at the time, and I began a couch to half marathon program that left little wiggle room. I started training and things went well enough at first, but then I had a couple of days when because of the baby waking early (I was still nursing) or something or other the other kids needed in the middle of the night, I wasn’t able to get out before the heat of the day kicked in. I was convinced it was a conspiracy of my family to keep me from running since things only seemed to happen on training days.
My training really fell off the mark, so I settled for the idea that I would run the 10k instead of half. I kept training as much as I could, but I admittedly lost steam.
I also ran into an issue when I trained in strong heat and humidity. My heart would do a weird tap dance and it would cause my breath to be taken away.
I went to my primary care , and she referred me to a cardiologist. I had several heart tests done and even wore a Holter vest for 24 hours. Nothing turned up and I proceeded to get ready for my race. Of course the day after I turned in the monitor was when my heart did its tap dance.
I happened to mention the heart/breath thing to my allergist and he told me he thought it sounded like exercise-induced bronchial spasms. He prescribed me an inhaler to try ten minutes before my runs to see if it would make a difference. It seemed to help.
As much as I had done, I was unprepared. I hadn’t trained much with hills, and the course had been changed last minute to a hillier one. I finished it though. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I think I pulled something in my legs, since I feel weak even claiming stairs at this point. My awesome sister who has run half marathons, stayed with me the whole time. She had a pouch in the back of her shirt where we kept my inhaler. It was a good thing we kept it. I had an asthma attack in the middle of the race and needed it. The hills made it harder than I thought it would, but I finished! Me the girl who had to pretend she was running for her life to get a decent grade in gym (let me dance for hours instead any day), finished a 10k race!
Still recovering for the race, but I’m really happy I did it. A couple of years ago I didn’t know if I could run three miles. Now I’ve run a six mile race. My sister wants us to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon in a year or two. Thankfully I know Orlando, and it’s pretty darn flat. New Goal to look forward to!