I’ve been running with the dogs this morning. In fact that seems to be pretty much the only exercise I have done recently. It’s also been tricky running with the dogs because of the heat. It is too warm during the day time so most of the runs have been very early in the morning or late at night.
- Sunday morning: 50 min run with both dogs
- Saturday evening: 40 min run with Tango – late in evening as a little warm before
- Saturday morning: 25 min run with both dogs – cut short as sun came out and so I turned it into a run and then walk
- Friday evening: 30 min run with Tango
- Thursday: 45 min lake swim, plus MTB ride to/from work, with car left at the lake.
Hopefully this afternoon will be a bike ride.
My cough is still there but it is less intense than before. I’ve had some tests to see what it might be but I don’t know what it is yet. Hopefully will find out more by the end of next week.
I’ve done a number of tests in the gym and for work medicals over the last four years and one of the things they measure is “PEFR”. This is Peak Expiratory Flow Rate. Basically you put a tube in your mouth and you blow out as hard as you can. This moves a pointer, you read the number and it tells you what PEFR. I have no idea what it means really but I have got a feeling I am going to learn about it.
Results so far:
13 June 2004: 630 l/min (gym)
4 October 2005: 569 l/min (medical)
13 October 2005: 630 l/min (gym)
28 March 2008: 606 l/min (medical)
So whatever PEFR is, my number was around 600 or so. The results say that this is “normal”.
I went to the emergency doctor today because I was in quite a lot of pain and she measured my PEFR at 450 l/min. That’s 25% less than what it used to be. Oh dear.
So it turns out I might have asthma. Or I might have a lung infection. Or both. So I’ve been given some antibiotics and an inhaler.
I’ve been looking around the web (always a dangerous thing to do) and think that if it is not a lung infection then I may have seasonal asthma. Or I might not. Who knows?
The coughing has been going on for at least three, maybe four, weeks now but the pain has only been bad in the days before Windsor (two weeks ago) and this week. It might account for my relatively poor performance on the bike at Windsor (or it might not!) and it definitely has contributed to my lack of exercise recently.
I got up at 1:20am this morning to get ready for the swim. But I soon worked out that I was too poorly to do it. I was coughing my heart out and my chest was very tight. Coughing hurts the glands under my jaw and feels like it rattles my brain around my skull. Not a nice feeling.
But I still went to Henley and watched the start. I still wanted to do it but I made the right decision to skip it.
I then walked down to the finish and, with another man, pulled around 170 people out of the river. I got soaked.
Next year I hope I will feel better.
Well this week I have been a little poorly. In one night I managed to lose 4lbs! A lot of it has come back now but I was pretty ill. As a result, I did very little training this week. A ride to work and back on Monday before I was ill (it takes longer than I remember!), a 10 minute run on Friday.
Yesterday I did a 4 mile run with Sparkie but he is not as fit as I remember so we walked the last mile or so. Then I took Tango out for a short run and he was fine.
Today is going to be interesting. There should be a family run and two family bike rides – a short one in the morning and a longer one this afternoon. I don’t know what exercise I will do today. I’ll probably take the dogs for a run again, with Tango doing the longer one and Sparkie the shorter one.
I’ve also gone and entered the Andover Triathlon on the 19 July 2009. This is a pool based, 440m swim, 30k bike and 7k run.