<p>" but at least got myself out and walked in our hilly neighborhood for an hour an a half with a neighbor. Its a start."</p>
<p>That’s a fine start, Jym. There are days when a walk, without the benefit of hills, is all I get in.</p>
<p>Yay, jym! Starting is a big part of the journey!</p>
<p>To “pace” someone means to help them run a desired time. In this case, the “pacee” runs quite slowly, but really wanted to finish the 5K comfortably. MaineLonghorn was able to accompany her, talk her through the race, and get her to the finish line, which was a new experience for ML and one she enjoyed! My daughter was paced by two faster marathoners in our group who chose to run with her on Sunday and help her to a PR, and they ran an even race and encouraged her when it got tough. </p>
<p>Walking is excellent exercise - especially when done regularly, at a decent pace and a good distance. </p>
<p>Now, unless you are really, really unfit or have some health conditions or physical limitations, I think if you are walking 15 mins, 2 times a week, I wouldn’t count on seeing any results. </p>
<p>Thanks for the nice welcome! I am home from a good workout at the gym. Somehow 30 minutes with the trainer seems like whole lot longer. Lower body workout tonight and some abs just for fun (not!).</p>
<p>Teriwtt-congratulations on doing so well battling cancer and now working to get your strength back. You are a real warrior! You’ve gotten so much good advice already, but I just want to ask if you are tracking your blood pressure. Occasionally my blood pressure gets too low and I get really lightheaded, especially at the gym.</p>
<p>MOWC-congrats on your half marathon. I followed your progress this year as you suffered through the fracture and those awful weeks on crutches. How far you have come! It’s awesome that your daughter had pacers at her marathon who helped her to a PR.</p>
<p>Plantmom-wow, great bloodwork numbers! You are definitely doing the right things!</p>
<p>Yes, I love to bake! Don’t like to cook, but love to bake. I am not so concerned about good healthy carbs but I really need to reduce the refined flour and sugar intake. It sounds so easy… I’m a work in progress…</p>
<p>Just had my physical. Disgustingly healthy. Just have that constant 10 lbs to lose.</p>
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<p>True! I think it was about 75 and sunny with a mild breeze. Perfect!</p>
<p>As to “pacing”: D1 flew into Austin from Chapel Hill a few years ago to run the only 5k that I’ve done. My personal best 5K had been just under 35 minutes. D1 paced me through the race; I noticed she kept looking at her phone, and she kept encouraging me to follow her stride if possible. We finished the race at 30 minutes and 20 seconds. I never would have done that without her there.</p>
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<p>Lard pops, I can see it now…</p>
<p>That’s what I thought pacing might be - guess I’m that uncompetitive that I would never want to have to keep up or be that tied into another runner just my personal preference. Me, myself and I - that’s who I prefer to run with !</p>
<p>Abasket- I actually prefer to pace myself, too, but pacers really can be a big help. Back in the day when I did my 62 mile age record run I had various pacers on the different laps. By the later miles I was ready to kill them. I wanted them to shut up and go away.</p>
<p>“lard pops”</p>
<p>One year our state fair dished up butter on a stick, battered and deep-fried. I was sorely tempted…</p>
<p>Idad - it’s a bit curmudgeonly, but why not just opt out of trick-or-treating? Go to the movies our something.</p>
<p>HDL of 86, wow. I can’t get mine out of the 40s.</p>
<p>Back from a trip to see the grandkids. Every time I play kickball with my now almost-5-year-old I remember I need to do more running. Walking I could do all day, but running uses a different sent of muscles, and I keep forgetting that! So I’m not in the shape I thought I was in, but I can still do kickball. It’s just that the kid can run all day and I can’t…</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone. I can’t remember who said what, so forgive me - I looked up orthostatic hypotension on wikipedia, and it fits what I’m experiencing. It also had a link of medications that can cause it, and yep, I’m taking one. I am also on a blood pressure med - believe me, I’ve had my BP taken dozens of times over the last six months, from in the doctor’s office, to ERs, to in the hospital. Interestingly, when I was admitted to the hospital for the sepsis, they took me off my BP med and I was confused. When I mentioned it to my internist one day when he was making rounds, he told me, “You don’t want to be on BP meds when you’re septic because you don’t want your BP to go any lower.” I hadn’t been paying any attention to my numbers at that point, but it was another clue that I was very sick. By the time I was discharged and the infection was better under control, I do know my BP readings started creeping up - in fact the night I was discharged, they almost didn’t let me go because it was high. I told them if they’d just let me go home and get back to my meds, I’d be OK, so they did! (of course, I had a home health nurse coming in the morning to check on me) Since the hospitalizations, I haven’t monitored it much - I’ve had it taken several times, and it’s always been good. I had one low reading one day when the home health nurse came, but it even went up by the time she left. </p>
<p>idad - it’s funny, after I read your long and thoughtful post, I said to myself, “How does what he write not surprise me?” I think my head is convinced that I should be able to do what I was doing nine months ago, but my body obviously isn’t. I do like my hour sessions with my trainer (for one, it’s cheaper than doing two 30-minute sessions), but perhaps what I should suggest is we spend 30 minutes doing PHA, and 30 minutes set training, and build up from there. My internist has his master’s degree in exercise physiology (he’s a cyclist), so I do feel comfortable asking him about this kind of stuff - I think you all have convinced me it would be a good idea to follow up with him on this. He’s not the one who prescribes the med that is implicated in orthostatic hypotension, but he knows I’m on it. With everything else going on, I just hadn’t taken the time to talk with him about this concern. I really do need to find another outlet for getting some cardio in. I had been doing so well with that prior to the surgery, then I just never got back into the groove. </p>
<p>Thanks again everyone. I hope to return to some consistency with this thread, but geez, does it move fast!</p>
<p>terriwitt:</p>
<p>You motivated me to pick up the pace a little bit with my strength training sets in the basement today. I basically did each four exercise set (single leg deadlifts, TRX pushups, DB front squats, 3pt DB rows) as a superset with minimal rest in between exercises (about 30 seconds).</p>
<p>The other thing you could mix into your hour sessions would be 20 to 30 minutes of dynamic warm up/mobility/stretching and core exercises. After a long layoff, this stuff would probably pay huge dividends in the way you feel. Here’s an example of the kind of stuff I’m talking about:</p>
<p><a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
<p>Takes me about 15 minutes. I do six reps per exercise and try to focus on quality over speed. It’s not very taxing, but it loosens/stretches/moves every major joint in my body to keep from feeling like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. If I could only exercise 15 minutes, three times a week, this is the first stuff I would do. I bet your trainer could put together some fun stuff that would be great after your layoff.</p>
<p>pizzagirl:</p>
<p>Yeah. Same system as the Orangetherapy. It’s actually a standard package for team training sold by the Polar folk Everyone gets heart rate strap and the signals are collected by a central computer and displayed on a monitor (or wall-mounted TV.</p>
<p>Looks like Results Fitness has three ranges – green (below 75% max), yellow (75% to 85% of max), and red (85%+)</p>
<p><a href=“http://results-fitness.com/whats-up-with-the-heart-rate-monitors/”>http://results-fitness.com/whats-up-with-the-heart-rate-monitors/</a></p>
<p>Alwyn Cosgrove has said that the biggest obstacle is fine-tuning each person’s max heart rate They start with the imprecise age estimate and then adjust accordingly.</p>
<p>Back from a quick trip to visit my D. My H, D and I ran a 5k together, my first! </p>
<p>The day before the race we went to NYC for the day. A fun day but long, tons of walking and we were seriously dehydrated. Despite that, had a nice time running with my family. Our time was 34.02, not fast but the course was hilly and I was tired from the day before. I basically ran my training pace for this race and could not run faster. </p>
<p>I did not like running this race with others even if they were family ;). I am old, have only been running a year. I was happy to be out there but was holding the others back and did not like that. </p>
<p>D said my running form was not good, she sent me some links to work on. Said I should be faster if I improve my form. I think she felt bad afterwards because she wasn’t as nice as she could have been. </p>
<p>D ran a 10k an hour later and ran a PR so she was happy. It was a great weekend and I would do it again. Probably would not go to NYC the day before though. </p>
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<p>That really resonates with me, deb. The women I now run with are much faster than my usual race pace, but our training pace is pretty close. I need to figure out how to turn on the burners in a race, but I suspect that would involve some substantial speedwork. That will be my goal for next year. </p>
<p>6 miles this morning. I’m not happy because I have to have a colonoscopy tomorrow. Blah. </p>
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<p>Yes, when we are dealing with septic patients in the ICU, we often are giving them strong drugs called “pressers” to keep the BP up-sometimes we can only get it up to the minimum - it can go very very low, and you have to keep the systolic (top number) to at least 70 or you can run into organ failure.</p>
<p>You do sound like you have orthostatic hypotension. Be careful when you get up out of a chair, and maybe drop the squats until you can see the doctor.</p>
<p>Keep us posted!</p>
<p>So Deb922 you did a 10K before you did a 5k?? Wow, that makes the 10K even more impressive! </p>
<p>Was the race in the city or out of the city? Cool to run in a new place. I love being able to do that on trips out of town.</p>
<p>What did your D see “wrong” with your running form??? I have been noticing that I have settled into a running form/stance that feels pretty comfortable. The length of my steps, the placement of my arms/hands, the rhythm of my hips with my steps. I have thought of going to a running clinic they offer here that will analyze your running form. </p>
<p>Sabaray, please AGAIN remind me of your race date??? </p>
<p>Great quote by my brother on FB - he is running the NYC marathon for the 3rd or 4th time in a couple of weeks:
“Have completed my last marathon-training long run and begun tapering. The only thing that could make this sweeter is if I didn’t have to run a marathon at the end of it.” Yes, he is utterly sarcastic! 
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<p>Interesting article on nutrition in Bicycling Magazine online. Nothing really new in it that hasn’t been discussed on this Board before but it’s attempting to bring the carb/fat discussion to an audience that has always been high carb.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/big-fat-lies”>http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/big-fat-lies</a></p>
<p>Deb, it’s fantastic that you, your husband, and your daughter are all in condition to be able to run a 5K together. That is something to be thankful for, for sure. Go team!</p>