C25k: Day 1, Week 1

Yesterday I started the Couch to 5k (C25k) running program as detailed on coolrunning.com. I downloaded a podcast from Running Into Shape to help me keep track of when to walk and when to run. I recommend to anyone who wants to do this program to either download or make your own, it made things a lot easier to be told what to do when and for how long.

I am just coming down with a head cold so I didn't really expect to be perfect at this. I will probably end up doing the 1st week schedule for two or even three weeks before moving on. Between my head feeling like an overfilled water balloon I also have to be mindful of my back. I don't want to re injure it. As far as trips to the gym go I will NOT touch a weight machine until I meet with a trainer and get some advice (I have a meeting scheduled for 4/8) from my chiropractor. Hell the exercise will probably help my back get stronger so hopefully I can stop going so much.

Back to the C25K program. This week after a warm-up you jog for 60 seconds then walk for 90 ending with a cool down walk. All told you are exercising for roughly 20 minutes.

Yesterday was my first day on this program. The treadmills were full so I opted to try the elliptical. Probably not recommended but it was what was open. In the end I probably got more of a workout then week 1 is intended to give you but it felt great and, in my opinion, worked fine.

I made it about 3/4 of the way through before just walking the rest of the program. My back held up rather well but between being on the elliptical and having the head cold I didn't want to push myself to far. I could feel myself getting light headed and called it over about halfway through the actual cool down walk. Since I started a little early and walked through the last running portion I wasn't to worried about not getting a good cool down in.

Exercise

Part of needing to wait three months to recheck my thyroid levels is to make sure that they weren't out of whack from something environmental. The doc suggested I actually eat and to try to make it healthy (before I went in I was down to one meal a day, if I was lucky. I just was never hungry. Still am not but I try to eat at least a little something anyway.) and that I also start exercising.

So I am trying to eat more and healthier and I will also be going to the gym and starting the Couch to 5k running program. I plan on trying to keep track of how well it is going here. Since I am not doing this for weight loss I am not planning on tracking that however that may change. Any weight that I drop will just be an added bonus, at this point I am doing this for health and energy levels.

Basically, I just am tired of feeling like crap every day.

Because nothing can ever be simple...

Went to the doctor for my followup. He was happy with how the meds were helping me. The blood work however showed that my thyroid numbers were low, which means my thyroid is overactive. He said that the numbers weren't low enough that it should cause me to have such severe anxiety issues, so he is sticking with the GAD diagnosis, but it could make it more difficult for me to handle it without the meds helping. He wanted to check the levels in 6 months and continue with the anxiety meds. If it turned out that my Thyroid is still not behaving then I would go on meds for that and hopefully be able to go back to dealing with my anxiety with exercise and calming breathing techniques.

Then I told him about Mom.

Now I go back in 3 months to check on the levels.

I'm scared.

I got a message from my father. My mom had my younger sister, who is severely autistic, and they were meeting him for lunch at the mall. When she got there she got confused. She didn't know where she was or why she was there. They wandered the mall until my dad got worried and left the restaurant to find them. He said when she saw him she remembered what was going on and broke down.

He said there had been some minor memory loss before this, getting confused and very tired. They are going to the doctor today to see if it has to do with the thyroid meds but this episode was serious. There is a small history of Alzheimer's in the family, my great grandfather on her side being the only one that we know of. If there is no indication of her thyroid meds being off they are checking into it further.

This scares me. Very much.

Good news.

Part of the family drama that I have been dealing with is that my mother was diagnosed with cancer in late December, just days before Christmas. She had a lump on her thyroid and had to have the entire thing removed to be biopsied. It came back positive for cancer.

I forget the name of the cancer. They told us that the kind she had rarely jumped cell types but that it could get into her blood stream and attach itself to her other organs. In other words a rogue thyroid cell could attach itself to her liver and grow a tumor. It wouldn't be liver cancer, still thyroid, it would just be located in the wrong spot.

For treatment they gave her some pills that made her radio active for a week. These pills were supposed to find any and all thyroid cells, kill them, and highlight them so that after a few days they would show up on a body scan. Then the doctors would be able to see if they needed to take further action against the cancer.

My parents just called me with the good news. The body scan showed that not only were the thyroid cells located ONLY in her throat but that it also appeared to have killed them all off.

She will need to go through this once more in about 6 months, just to be safe, but the doctors were confident to call her cancer free.

Maybe there is hope for 2010 yet.

I will not run. I will not run.

Why is it that running away always seems like the best option? Don't get me wrong, it by no means is, but that doesn't stop the desire to run the other way when shit goes pear shaped.

I don't know what happened to me. When faced with a challenge I used to excel. I might not have been great at whatever it was I tried to do but the thing was I tried and gave it my all. Anymore it seems like I just shy away and hide. I guess my fight or flight wires got crossed somewhere.

Either way I just have to try and not to run. Running will not solve anything. Running will only make things harder in the long run, the ever present and dreamed about big picture. I will not run is my new mantra, along with today WILL be a good day, although I managed to fail on that on not 3 hours after I adopted it.

Not every day will be a good one. Not every fight needs to be fought. But not every day will be bad either and I can't hide from every obstacle. Balance is what I need. Balance in my mind, in my work and in my home.

So I guess all I can do is take a few deep breaths, a 5 minute break to meditate and calm my self down, and then try and get back to work.

But damn is Florida looking like a nice place to hide for a while.

Things are looking up.

So, it's been a week on the meds and I can tell the difference. Granted it's not a big one and I still expect some pretty big roller coaster rides of emotions until it really gets into my system, but I will take any positive difference at this point.

I am happy. Truly happy and playful. I wasn't not happy before but I didn't feel this...carefree either. The fears and everyday worries that plagued me constantly have drastically declined. I do still have them, they do still pop in my head, but mentally smacking myself upside the skull to stop thinking like that is much easier. I have been realizing my worries earlier as well so they don't careen out of control, snowballing into huge issues. I can tell that my everyday outlook is changing as well. The negative thoughts are making way for much more positive and optimistic ones.

I still have issues and probably always will but I can look back on the last year and see just how bad I have let myself become. This has been going down long before I thought it was. It was so gradual of a change, so slight day to day differences, that I just didn't notice the cliff at the end. Thankfully I was able to grab a hold of the edge before falling and got help before to many fingers began to slip. It was close though.