#sam runs

[shallowseeker]

you know that winding path au bobby and mary are walking around the bunker in 13x23?

dean and cas walk it often, especially when it rains

[copperbadge]

Your post about the race reminded me to thank you for telling your readers that exercise-induced asthma exists. It would never have occurred to me to connect the fact that I’ve always gotten out of breath and tasted blood when I tried to run for more than a minute at a time with the list of conditions that qualify you for a Covid vaccine this year.

Oh hey, glad it helped! I didn't know it existed either until someone else said, "Hey Sam, you should maybe look this up." So I'm paying it forward.

But yeah, for the new readers, I developed asthma as a direct result of trying to be healthier. I was running four to five miles a day in my thirties when my chest and throat started to hurt every time I ran, and I developed a cough around mile three every day.

I originally took preventative Albuterol for it, but during the pandemic it was hard to get and I decided to leave it for people who truly needed rescue inhalers. And when I looked up non-prescription solutions in July 2020, wouldn't you know it....a face mask was suggested to help circulate moist warm air into the throat.

So now I run in a COVID mask, looking like a real weirdo. But I am a real weirdo so I guess that tracks. :) if you have pain in the lungs or throat, excessive coughing, shortness of breath, or taste blood when you run, but only when you run or otherwise exert yourself, go talk to a doctor about possible exercise induced asthma. And then invest in a few fun fabric face masks.

I hated running SO MUCH that my body rebelled against me, but we both hate all other workouts even more.

[copperbadge]

If you've ever had deep-tissue massage, you may have encountered "clicker" adhesions -- small knots of muscle that shift and "click" when you press on them. They can usually be massaged out, but they're generally signs of stress on a muscle. I get them under my shoulder blades usually, but when I was running more regularly I occasionally got them on the arches of my feet.

I went to the local massage school on Saturday for some body work, and when the student therapist was working on my feet she found a clicker in my left instep. I could feel her freeze when it happened. Adhesions in the feet can be difficult because the odds of causing a cramp in the foot or calf are high.

"It's fine, I run, I get those," I said. "You can work it out if you want, I'll let you know if it hurts."

It did hurt a little but she got it loosened up pretty easily, and I felt like I gave her a nice challenge.

This morning I upped my run length -- a half mile warmup walk, 3/4 mile run (as much as I can), and half mile cooldown walk. Towards the end I could also feel myself getting a stitch in my side, so I did a breathing exercise, forcibly pushing the abdomen out on each inhale and relaxing my lats consciously, which killed it before it properly got started.

Pain is not, as the saying goes, "weakness leaving the body" or even always a sign something is "wrong" per se. Pain is just pain, a body signaling that something needs attention. It can simply mean you're doing something differently with your body than normal. Which also means that pain can be useful in some contexts. I know that adhesions on my arches mean I need to adjust my form (already addressing it -- this was my second run in my new running shoes and I can feel the difference) and that a stitch in my side means I'm breathing too shallowly and holding my torso too stiffly. I don't like pain, and I don't find it motivating or "toughening" or anything like that, but I do use it as a diagnostic tool.

And hey presto -- I didn't lower my 18:10 average pace any, but I did keep my average while doing an extra quarter of a mile, so I'll take it. Meanwhile, the playlist has had to be rejiggered to account for that and I'm still figuring out how, so no playlist post this time, but hopefully I'll have it sorted on Wednesday for the next run.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! IIRC, you've been diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. Would you be willing to talk about it/the process for figuring it out?

Sure! Although I'm not sure how much help it will be. The process of getting diagnosed was pretty informal.

Basically, it began with tumblr -- someone asked how I dealt with leg cramps from running and I said I didn't really get leg pain too badly, most of the discomfort I had was in my chest and throat from breathing heavily. Someone else commented to say that it sounded like I had exercise-induced asthma, which I didn't even know was a thing. At that point the breathing issues had started to impact my stamina -- I was running less because I just couldn't breathe -- so the next time I saw my doctor, I told him what I'd been experiencing and brought up the idea.

My doc basically said it was likely and we could do tests if I wanted, but in his opinion the best test was simply to prescribe me an Albuterol inhaler and see if it worked. Two puffs, five to ten minutes before running, would at least ease the breathing difficulties. Albuterol isn't especially controlled and wasn't that hard to get at the time (2019) so it was a rational way to test, and it seemed to work. It didn't fully fix the problem but for a while it did enough.

For what it's worth, the actual diagnostic test is some kind of treadmill run stamina test. I've never had one.

In any case, the problem became that because I only used the inhaler sparingly, by the time I needed a new one, my prescription had expired. I kept either having to get a new scrip or just do without. Then the pandemic hit and inhalers became impossible to get for a while -- and honestly I wanted people who actually needed rescue inhalers to have them. But I couldn't run without something to help with the breathing issues, so I did a little research -- I was looking for over-the-counter solutions to the problem. What I did find made me laugh -- this was May or June of 2020, a few months into quarantine, and the solution I found in an article from 2014 was to wear a flu mask while running.

Well, I had plenty of those, so the next time I went running I wore one of the cotton covid masks I'd made, and sure enough it basically fixed the problem -- it worked even better than the Albuterol, because it was constantly cycling moisture back into my throat and lungs. These days I put it on when I start to run and I only take it off if my breathing has leveled off and been slow and even for more than two or three minutes.

So my advice honestly is to put on a covid mask -- it doesn't have to be fabric, a KN95 will work -- and exert yourself until you've been breathing heavily for a few minutes. If you don't feel wheezy/asthmastic, or at least feel less than usual, that's a pretty good sign it's asthma. You can talk to your doctor about an inhaler, but exercise-induced asthma is pretty predictable, so if a mask helps I wouldn't bother with a diagnosis -- just wear it when working out, and maybe keep a spare on your person if you tend to get out of breath in non-workout situations.

I feel a little foolish running on the street in a covid mask, to the point where I've been tempted to embroider "IT'S FOR MY ASTHMA" on the front, but at least I can run again when I'm wearing one.

[copperbadge]

It's pouring down rain out here, but I missed last week's yoga class so I wrapped up my mat, put on my raincoat, and sent the person I'm dating a selfie before I left for the studio. They replied, "Well, Wet Yoga IS the new craze. Good thing you wore appropriate gear."

I'm going to be laughing about Wet Yoga all morning.

[copperbadge]

I spent most of yesterday dealing with a pressure headache brought on by the weather, and I woke up this morning groggy from the PM meds and feeling hung over, but I got dressed and I went and did the thing. I didn't run much, and when I started feeling a little shaky I stopped at a mile and a quarter, not the mile and a half I'm supposed to, but we run with the body we have, not the body we wish to have.

Didn't tweak the playlist this time because it was an unusual workout, but at least as starting points go it leaves a lot of room for improvement.

And tomorrow I'm starting a yoga class! Got my clothes laid out and my mat ready to go. Polk has already been demonstrating some stretches. I think this one is called the Backwards Orange.

[copperbadge]

Mitch Hedberg used to tell a joke that went, "You know how they say it's really hard to quit smoking? It's exactly that difficult to start flossing." and I think that holds true for running as well. But I got up and I did the thing! The graph is very different from yesterday even though I ran pretty much the same program (half mile walk, half mile running as much as possible, half mile walk) but I think it's because I had the mask on for the running today, which really does make a difference. I did a mile and a half in 27 minutes for a pace of 18:10 which isn't much improved over Wednesday but was way less painful.

Still tweaking the playlist -- it'll be an ongoing process but I'll stop posting once I get it a little more firmed up.

Robbie Williams - Party Like A Russian

The Kills - At The Back Of The Shell

Robbie Williams - Hot Fudge

You Suck At Cooking - Fighter Jet

OutKast - Back Up Plan

The Greatest Showman OST - The Other Side

Walk The Moon - Anna Sun

Hall & Oates - Rich Girl

Michael Penn - Denton Road (Accoustic)

The Greatest Showman OST - The Greatest Show

Denton Road is actually not a great walking OR running song but it's a song I really like, so putting it in as the song that basically comes on when I get to stop running is like a little treat to myself. :)

I've also discovered an interesting linguistic phenomenon -- I shared my running playlist with the person I'm dating, who is a bit older than I am, and they have since referred to it as a mixtape. Which is charming -- I'm old enough to remember mixtapes and they fully understand it's a digital playlist, but calling it a mixtape has a nice retro feel to it. I'm wondering if there's a generational divide between people who say mixtape, people who say playlist but recognize the term, and people who exclusively use playlist.

[copperbadge]

Nice.