I was drifting after recovering from the heart incident and didn’t have anything significant to focus on after cardiac rehab. I need focus, otherwise I just hop from one thing to the next. Case in point, I downloaded a Chess game about a month ago so I could learn how to play. Why? It’s possible I was bored. More likely, I just needed a challenge. For the past 5 years I have been all-consumed in something. School, cancer, school again, job change, weight loss, new job, heart… just, always something.
Last year I was all-consumed by losing weight. I just finally had my shit together. After years of trying and failing and starting and stopping, it all just clicked. I wanted to lose 40 pounds ahead of a mini-vacation we had planned for our Anniversary. I was half a pound shy of the goal when we left, but I did it. I continued to lose after that, too. Got to -50 pounds when congestive heart failure happened. I had to adjust my eating for that. Significant drop in sodium meant managing two different apps for tracking the food intake. It was annoying. I focused on the sodium and my cardiac rehabilitation. I worked my way back from zero activity to being able to do a full-tilt cardio at the gym. Then I was released to start lifting weights again, and I worked back from pitiful to strong again. The medications gave my heart the help it needed to heal and, as rehab went on, they were cut in half.
Through all this, a little weight began to creep back on. Just a few pounds, but the scale wasn’t moving the way it had been in 2018. I couldn’t find the motivation to recommit. Slipping in energy and unwilling to give it any effort, I felt like I was just floating around without direction. Drifting. After years of either illness or school or recovery, I needed something to focus on, but what? I’m not in the mood for an illness, I like my job, and I’m not yet convinced I need another degree. What to do? I could write, but the drifting wasn’t helping the writing.
While I drifted, though, I started noticing something. Running. Here and there, I would see things. Stickers on cars declared “13.1” and “26.2.” The local run shop’s running “Dude” decal was everywhere.  Friends and acquaintances participating in different running groups were popping up online and in conversation. I remembered when I’d started running way back in Gina BC — Before Cancer. In Gina BC I tried a couple different running programs. One focused on a 2-mile run. Another the Couch To 5K program.  Things are different now. My body has been through the wringer. I am intensely aware of my heart. I dropped 50 pounds. I’m stronger thanks to regular strength training. My stamina is better thanks to the cardiac rehab. And, honestly, cancer gave me the gift of recognizing when my body is telling me things. The cardiologist flat-out told me I was healthy. So, I could do it. Right?
The running signs got stronger and they all pointed to Boise Galloway Training. I read two books (it’s me, of course I did the reading!) on the Galloway run-walk-run method and liked the conservative approach to running while minimizing risks of injury or over-training. I learned that even those recovering from injury or illness could be reintroduced with intervals as short as 10 seconds of running per minute. I wondered if I could do it. So, one Saturday in May, I went to a local high school track.
4 laps. 1 mile. 10 second run, 50 second walk. It quickly became a shorter walk, then running the straights and walking the curves. I finished with a half-track run out of breath, but with a happy heart. I can do this. I signed up on National Running Day. First I joined Boise Galloway Training, then I signed up for a 10K to take place the last weekend of September. Training would officially begin in July. I had a month to get to my self-declared goal of run/walking 3 miles comfortably with witnesses. That is, I wanted to be able to do it without collapsing or embarrassing myself. Collapsing, of course, being secondary to the embarrassing — messed up priorities, I know.
During this time, I would do all the important things like buy new running shoes (because any excuse to get new shoes). I also investigated interval apps, reacquainted myself with Map My Run, and figured out different ways to simultaneously carry water, a phone, ear buds, emergency nutrition, and tissues. Hey, my nose runs when I run!
Because just the running goal isn’t enough, I decided this adventure should be tracked here. Year of Gina continues as the place to record the ups and downs and, in this case, the circles I shall run. Stay tuned.