I ran!

[Avistew]

So, bit W00t for me, small beans for most people.

For most of my life, I struggled with asthma. At its worst I could get an attack just from walking too fast or climbing stairs slowly. Needless to say, I didn't do much running. I was exempted from gym class for medical reasons and always avoided "fast activity" (I guess you'd call that cardio) because it was the worst for me.

A few times I tried to job with friends. I could never last more than a few seconds at a time, and got bad cramping as well as the asthma attacks. That was years ago and kind of traumatic. Last year I tried to follow a program to slowly progress with running, but the first stage was like 30 seconds at a time, and I times myself and 5 seconds were all I could give, and it took ten minutes to recover from that.

Now, since April this year, I've been training every other day, sometimes less consistently than others, and walking the other day as my cardio (longer distances and more weights as I progressed). But I never made the switch to jogging as I was still terrified by it.

Yesterday, I was feeling ready for my walk, but I didn't have the hour to 90 minutes I usually take. So I decided to instead go around a few blocks and jog. And I did! I jogged one block, then walked one, etc.

I managed to run up to 30 seconds straight, and while I did get the taste of metal in my mouth, the wheezing and the inability to breeze, I recovered much faster than in the past. Even with my Ventolin, it usually took at least ten minutes before. But yesterday, I never stopped moving, and by the time I was done walking to the next block I was recovered enough to run again.

It was scary and it still is, because my brain is telling me "Don't do that, you're going to die!" every time I start running, but I pushed myself and tried to go fast and I did it. I'm hoping to introduce more running into my formerly walks from now on.

As a note, even though I only ran for a total of 5 minutes (and walked for a total of 10), I can't believe how much of a sweat I worked up!

[Animal_Nerd]

Congratulations! Any small victory is still a victory, and you did a great job! Just keep on being careful about it, I'm sure you'll run far!

[RescuedRuckus]

This is awesome news! Congrats on the victory (Huzzah huzzah huzzah!)

[Cutebug]

Good for you!!!! :)

[Avistew]

Thanks for the support, everyone

[katpower]

That's so awesome! I've never been able to run either, but have started this year - about to start week 3 of c25k - it's such a great feeling you want to tell everyone I RAN!!! even though they wouldn't get it.

[wannabefit]

Well Done! That is a victory and it sounds as though you've put a lot of effort in over the last year. I get that funny metalic taste if I run and I can feel the blood rushing around my lungs which makes me panic. I've got a really bad attitude to running and feel like I can't do it (I don't have asthma so I've got no real excuse). I think I'll put my shoes on today and just get out there - thanks for the inspiration!

[Tinessael]

I'm an ex-asthmatic (had it until I was 13-14). Then, after I spent a month in a hospital with pneumonia, that got way out of control because of asthma, the doctor told me that I have to start running, or otherwise it will never be better. I thought she was crazy, but I also started slow. After every running intervall I would get horrible coughing fits, my lungs would hurt, I was horribly out of breath and would cough up mucus in tremendous amounts. But I...don't really know why, stuck to it - after about 4-6 months I could actually run 5 minutes in a row and enjoy it. Then I built it slowly up, and now I can run 10-11K with no problem and my asthma is gone!

So you've made an awesome start, just fight through it, don't be afraid of the wheezing and stick to it and give it time - progress will come for us very slowly, more slowly than for other people, but it will come!

[Avistew]

I'm so glad I inspired someone! And it's nice to see other people were in my situation and got so far by keeping at it. Definitely very motivating for me.

I never though I could ever be a runner, but now I'm thinking that if I go at it slow and steady, I could be one someday! It might takes months, it might take years, but it's possible, and that's a very empowering thought.

Now that I feel like I have a base to start from, I'll give couch to 5k a go. I've heard it mentioned a lot, and if I need to adapt it to my slower progress I will, but having a program to follow should be helpful, and a good way to monitor my progress.

EDIT: I think I'll start with a Week 0, with 30 seconds running, as much time as I need to recover walking, for 13 cycles (which would be 20 minutes if I took 60 seconds to recover). I'll repeat that week until it does take me 60 seconds to recover.

Then I'll go to Week 1, 60 seconds running, 90 seconds walking, but once again giving myself more recovery time at first.

Then I'll just see. This should keep me busy for a bit already, as I don't expect my endurance to build up extremely fast. Then again, the program gets you to 5k in 9 weeks, and I probably would set my goal as being able to run 5k in a year or even more, so I have a lot of room to pace myself

I'm also planning to run every other day rather than 3 times a week, because that works out better for me. So maybe I'll think of the program in matters of two weeks' cycles, or 7 running sessions instead of 3. I'll see.

I'm all pumped. Just like I see pullups as an important milestone for strength, I see running as an important milestone for endurance, and the idea of getting my asthma completely under control is very appealing.