The Anticlimax

What a strange week.

I blew off my last echocardiogram because I figured what's the point.  And, my friend the Nurse Practitioner at the Oncology clinic said that I didn’t really have to do it.  I only had one more Herceptin treatment left, and we were going to go ahead and do it anyway.  Part of me wanted to see if my echo was actually any BETTER due to all the running I’ve been doing, but the larger part of me really just wanted to skip an appointment. I felt like I needed to make some kind of point or something. Feel rebellious, etc.  Anyway, I didn’t go.

I did my last (let’s hope anyway) Chemo (Herceptin) on Wednesday last week.  Again, like on the last day of my Radiation, I was sort of hoping that there would be confetti, or someone would ring that bell for me, or something. But, Alas, no one there seemed to know that it was my last treatment.  Nothing Happened. No Celebration. No Congratulations. Nothing.  I got poked, I got infused, and I did my usual best to ignore everything else going on in that room. I was on the phone and the computer, and I hardly even noticed the F------ harp player, but it WAS helpful that I was one row further away from her this time.  As I walked out, it was sort of like  s  l  o  w  motion as I passed that big brass bell on my left.  I’m not a shy person, and had I really felt deep down that the whole thing was over, I would have reached up and just RANG the () thing myself.  But…I didn’t.  I’m not sure if it was the fact that I knew I had to go back there the very next day to have the actual appointment with the oncologist, or the fact that I’ve still made no final decisions regarding the longevity of my left breast, made no plans for reconstruction, or the fact that I still have this port-a-cath imbedded in my left subclavian veins. But I just didn’t.  I just couldn’t, in full consciousness, ring that bell.  It would have been cool if someone else would have rung it, but, I just couldn’t do it myself.   Once I made it past the bell, I did, however, shed 2 tears as I walked out toward the stairwell.  I was not really clear on where the tears were coming from.  The last time I cried was July of this year (the last time I had a menstrual period) if you’re not counting the tears I shed 2 weeks ago as I got into my car to drive away from the trail race I did that weekend.  Those were tears of joy, though.  Tears of rejuvenation.  You know, the kind where you are sort of laughing and crying at the same time.  So, I really wasn’t counting that as crying. While one my think these tears I shed while walking out of the chemo room would have been of joy, or relief, they really didn’t feel that way.  Instead, during this slow motion scenario as I was walking out, I was experiencing a flashback of the last 16 months.  The infusions, the waiting, and the faces of the other patients.  I guess it was mixed emotion.  THAT, and as it turned out, a mere 2 days after the end of my Herceptin, I started my period again!  WOW! I thought that was over with!! I’ve been through hard core Menapause two times now and it is no fun.  In retrospect, I had noticed that my hot flashes were getting easier and farther apart.  Not really even waking me up.  I sort of thought that might be due to the fact that it’s been colder her, so I thought maybe I just wasn’t minding, or noticing them.  Well, I guess I’ll have to inform the doctor of this, but I’m thinking maybe it’s all part of the menopause. 

After meeting with the Oncologist for my “wrap up” appointment I really didn’t feel that much more resolve than I had prior to the appointment.  A summary of how that went: Wait in waiting room one hour.  Just about to get up to leave and the nurse came out to get me and said…”I was hoping you hadn’t left….the doctor is just getting back from vacation.  (At least the nurse knows me, I guess).   Once the doctor came in he began to dictate in front of me as he commonly does and he was saying something about how I’m continuing Herceptin.  I said NO, it was done yesterday.  We argued about it a bit, then he confirmed that yes, I was done.  He gave me a long spiel about Hi Tech vs. Low tech and Fatality rates with Breast Cancer in order to try to convince me for the 3^rd time that I DO NOT need any PET scans or further MRIs.  Maybe a chest x-ray, now and then.  He said that the patient ususally catches metastasis before the scans do, or "nearly" as soon :(.   Well,  let’s just hope I’m ON my CANCER game  a bit better than I was last time when I went in for the first time with a 7 centimeter tumor in my right breast.  He said that I can go get this Port out anytime, and that he would see me in four months.  We didn’t speak at all about the other side.  I know I’m not fully an optimist, but, I AM starting to think Conspiracy here.  Conspiracy between the Oncologist and the General Surgeon for me to keep this thing on the left despite initial recommendations to have it taken off too.    We’ll see though.  I’ll call the surgeon to make and appointment to discuss the port and the following surgery and reconstruction.  The reason I write this is in case anyone is reading this who has had breast cancer like mine where they initially recommend Bilateral Mastectomy due to aggressiveness of the cancer and due to young age.   Do NOT fall for the argument that you can remove the other breast during the reconstruction surgery.  When you have larger breasts, IT is really not cool to have one.  I won’t go into the details again.  I would have preferred to just have them both taken initially, as i thought was going to happen.  Remember, the general surgeon informed me only days before the surgery that we would wait to do the other side until the reconstruction happens.  I was not reconstructed at that time due to radiation.  I have, however, interviewed several of my therapy clients recently who have had single mastectomy with NO reconstruction and asked them how they have liked it.  They all say, it’s horrible to have one.  AND, a side note is that I’ve noted that many of them have moderate to severe scoliosis.  I don’t think it is a coincidence.  My chest, back and underarm are so tight it is affecting my right hip and groin.  This may be mostly due to the radiation though.  As my dermatologist said….As she was cutting a hole in my right thigh to rule out skin cancer…..Radiation makes the muscles “like beef jerky”.  She’s right.  So, I suppose I cannot blame all the tightness on the surgery alone.

Enough about that.  I’ve decided to attempt a medical free holiday and not make any appointments until after the New Year.  

As for running.  It is great.  Last week was my highest mileage week so far this time around.  47 miles and full of HILLS, HILLS, HILLs.  Long run was 21 miles trail with lots of HILLs.  This week is recovery week.  I’ll do my best not to gain much weight with Holiday Foods Galore.

This is the hairdo that happens when one is trying to hold down the wacky hair that does whatever it wants.

Next week 25 miles long trail run.

I wish everyone the Happiest and Healthiest of Holidays!

Lessons in Patience

One thing that I was pretty sure that cancer would not take from me was my patience.  Clicking off weeks and months of treatment and months and months of appointments, surgery and recovery, I often thought how this practice could help me become more patient as a person, and a more patient distance runner.  It takes patience to train for, and to run, long distances.    

Prior to cancer I was not really a fast runner.  My strengths as a runner were primarily that I was very patient, and very controlled, and “kind of strong” in general.  Some called it toughness. Whether it was physical or mental I'm not sure.  I was the queen of the perfect repeat, or of the negative split in workouts and many races.  I have many times relaxed and watched as competitors have run past me at mile 18 in order to pass them again at 25.  I’ve been able to control my pace to almost exact times.  I could follow a race plan to a “T”.  Once, I ran a marathon within 6 seconds of my goal time. Also, the average pace of the last 6 miles (of that marathon) was 1 minute faster than the first 20.  A negative split.  That was how I wanted it.  Partly because that's how I trained, and partly because when I had asked the head coach of my running group that time, Steve Sisson of Rogue, if a negative split marathon was possible and he said.. It's very difficult to do... but possible... it was then that I knew that negative splitting the marathon was what I needed to do.

During my cancer treatment I often tried to parallel treatment to distance/trail training in my mind.  It was something that gave me comfort due to the familiarity and the small feeling of control that it gave me.  Somehow, I could “pace” myself through it.  I also felt that if I couldn't train by running, at least I was going to be tuning and strengthening the important skills of patience and control.

Now, after over a year of this practice and 4 months of being back to running, I’m wondering… “Is it possible that, instead of tuning and strengthening my patience and control, I have used them up or let them go?”  Regarding control…I do know that this cancer treatment required me to “give in to THE METHOD” on more occasions than I was comfortable.  It did indeed require patience to continue for the 16 months I have endured, however, now I’m finding myself impatient and eager. I began to realize this about 6-8 weeks ago when I first started having some good runs.  After my warm up, or even before I was warm, I would find myself beginning to pick up the pace much earlier in the workout than I ever would have before. If I was doing repeats of something, like mile repeats, the 3rd or 4th repeat might be the fastest instead of the more desired last one.  This goes against everything that's always worked for me before in training.  I actually even used to lightly mock people like me who would run this way.  I've known it was happening and I've just let it.  I have NOT controlled myself.  I have given in to the temptation to run out of control.

This Saturday I ran a 25K trail race.  This weekend’s race was yet another lesson for me.  This race was supposed to be a training run for me. 

This was my RACE PLAN: Run the first 5 miles easy and then the last 10.5 miles at race pace and achieving a negative split overall.

Here’s how it went:

Mile 1: Too Fast.  *Fastest mile of My race,  but…. I’ll let that slide… everyone was fast. 

Mile 2: Too fast again.  Try to calm down. Try to follow plan…

Mile 3: Try to Pace….Try to be OK with letting these stupid Bitches pass me up this hill. They will pay later.

Mile 4: Running Balls Out! on the downhills!  Not patient! Not controlled…  But SO FUN!  I killed everyone near me for that next mile or two, that's for sure!  Really, I think that trying to keep up with me for those couple miles must have hurt some folks because I think only 1 guy passed me after that.  I did go on to pass maybe 9-10 people the rest of the race.  This all sounds kinda good, but, I kinda killed myself too.  AND I did not follow my plan...! I didn’t maintain control.

Around mile 6 I took some time to ease up and try to regroup and it helped some. It prevented a full on BONK, but some of the damage had been done. It was not going to be the negative split training run I had planned.

Pace and manage.  I don't know where this came from, but this was my mantra from mile 7-14.

At mile 14 I came up behind a woman who I had raced against, and beat, at the 20 miler that I won back in March 2010.  My Heyday J.  I was tired, but I had to catch and pass this person.  At this point this was a good thing for me. It gave me some focus.  Once I passed her, I was able to see the finish line and one person between me and the finish that looked like she could have been in my age group. There was about .5 miles to go.  I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to catch her, but I knew I would be angry at myself if she was in my category and I did not try.  So, I pretended that I heard my friends cheering for me, and I answered, for myself, a question that I had recently heard asked…Do you have something more to give?  And I passed her within 20 yards of the finish line.

Now that I think about it, it’s likely that this woman was just finishing her first loop of the 50K race that had started 30 minutes before my race….  (In the running world, this is probably pretty pathetic that I was trying to beat a girl in the race of twice the distance I was running. But hey, I didn’t know…and I could not take that chance anyway J). That last mile was my second fastest of my race.

Here I am holding my 2^nd place in age group award. 

 10^th female overall out of 36. 

Despite my disappointment that i did not follow my race plan,  I AM very happy with this.  This place is very similar to something I might have done just before cancer.  As a matter of fact, the last race that was put on by this group (Rogue) that I ran back in May 2010, I got 2^nd in my age group and 8^th female.  I know now that my body just wanted to see what it could do.  It was in a fight with my mind and this time I let it win.  

Cancer Rain Check?

Since I was diagnosed with breast Cancer in August 2010, many things have happened.  Likely very few of which I was aware.  I remember when I was pregnant with Ace I tried to stay connected to the world and my running friends the best I could under the circumstances.  I remember I would go out to the races that I would have potentially been running had I not been pregnant, and cheer.  I have memories of living that year.

Now that it has been over a year since I was diagnosed, and a year since treatment was in full swing, my memories of last year are very odd and even distorted.  It is often difficult for me to distinguish memories from the year before as being 2 years ago.  This time last year I was in full blown Chemotherapy with the “Red Devil”.  Unlike the past 5 or so years, my memories of last year do not revolve around running races, or training schedules.  They revolve around phases and stages of treatments, and feelings; both mental and physical.  Phases of weakness, and some nausea, hotflashes, and being cold too.   I remember baldness and certain hats that I wore.    I remember my Mom doing my dishes, and eating lots of Soup that friends would bring over by the gallons. I remember notes that friends wrote me and even certain texts. I remember when I started my blog, and even some of the entries.   I remember very little about work except the little presents or chocolates that my co-worker would leave for me after each treatment and that I wore scarves to keep my neck warm. I remember little about what other people were doing.  I remember nothing about politics or things going on in the world other than anything that had to do with the iphone.  I do however remember the approximate distances that I was calling my “long run” which occurred weekly on Tuesday Mornings before my chemotherapy, with the Team Rogue Group.  I remember people that were in the group at that time.  I remember how people were very nice to me and how some would look at me with a very confused look on their face.   I don’t blame them, of course. Many of them didn’t know why I looked the way I did, and  It’s not every day you see someone at a running group who is ghostly pale, bald, and currently undergoing chemotherapy. 

This past week I was running with one of the women who had been in the group at this time last year.  I’ve known of her for several years.  I’ve seen her around.  She’s much faster than me so we just never really ran together or got to know one another.  Anyway, she ran up behind me and began to run beside me and asked me how my Thanksgiving was.  It was funny to me because I initially had no idea she was talking to me.  I figured she was asking the faster guy to her right.  “Oh, me?”  I said something about how it was good and how happy I was that our kids were good in the car on the 14 hour drive to Alabama, and back. I decided at this point that I would attempt to keep the running up at her pace.  Why not?  It was cool outside… a good running temperature for me.  We began to discuss running, and running marathons, which is an unsurprisingly common topic of discussion on a run such as this.  She asked me what I was training for and I told her about the 50 mile trail run I have scheduled in March. We discussed trail running versus road running.  Neidra, the woman I was talking to, has done some trail running and has considered “going trail” J.  I said something to the effect of… I have very little desire anymore to run road marathons, at this time anyway… except the New York City Marathon.  I mentioned that one bummer about getting Cancer when I did, was that now I may not be able to make it into the New York Marathon.  You see, prior to Cancer, I had qualified for and completed the Boston Marathon.  I had run a 50k trail race and done well in several other trail races.  My next plans were to run a fast ½ marathon in order to qualify myself for guaranteed entry into the NY Marathon (which was the last Marathon I really had the desire to run) with the 3M marathon in January. After that I was going to run the 50 miler in March.  This was to happen in Jan-March 2011.   During cancer treatment (which ended up what happened instead) when I was running, I always had in the back of my mind the 50 mile trail race.  Many days that thought is what kept me going.  When I got back into training again in August/September 2011, I kept my focus on the trail race and decided that this is what I should do because this is what is driving me, AND…I don’t have to worry about running FAST.  Even when I first approached my road coach John Schrup with my 50 mile plan, he said he could support that, based on the same thinking….I would’t have to run fast, or anything. 

Now, I’m mentioning this to Neidra, how I’m a bit disappointed that now I may not ever be able to qualify for New York because they are going to change the qualifying times to be much faster….To be beyond my likely achievable zone.  Her response was…”well, couldn’t you get a Rain Check or something?” I liked that idea very much, and have played it out in my head several times since….

Dear ING NYC Marathon,

I was scheduled to qualify for your marathon in Jan 2011, but got cancer, and did treatment instead.  I feel sure that I would have qualified at that time because I needed to run a 1:44, and I had previously run a 1:48 during a training run, without actually racing.  I hear now that the qualifying times for my age/gender will be changed to 1:30 which is likely beyond my ability.  A friend of mine mentioned that you might be able to give me a rain check for the 1:44 time, so I thought I’d ask. 

Sincerely,

Emily H.

One of the difficult things about this is that there is still actually a very small, untimely, window of opportunity.  I could still qualify if I ran the 1:44 by 1/31/12.  There is a fast half marathon in Austin on 1/29/12.

The problem is, I’ve been running trail 4/5 days per week, and running slow for the most part.  

Grist State Park Alabama

 My primary goal is still the 50 miler and I’m supposed to run 35 miles the day before the mentioned half marathon race and 15 miles the day of the race.  But….could I squeeze this qualifying time in? without getting injured? and without derailing my primary running goal?.... if the rain check idea doesn’t pan out?

4 hour 20 minute trail run in the rain completed last weekend.

15 mile trail race/training run this weekend.