The Click

Exercise Asthma
One of these images depict “the click.” The other, not so much. Can you guess which is which? If not, now may be the time to realize you need glasses. The left image is Ironman Coeur d’Alene around the half-way mark on the run, when I went on to have a PR marathon time. The other, Ironman Louisville, one of my worst marathon times ever.

You know the moment during a run when you feel the click? Your body smooths into the stride, the rhythm of your footfalls feels effortless, and your mind is focused only on the present.

Yup – that moment. It’s absolutely delicious, right?

Those are the moments that give us the grit for the tough days because we know that we carry inside of us the potential of the click. The body may shift into gear at any moment. Even if you think the workout or the race won’t get better, just hold on. Wait for it. Stay focused. Stay positive. It just might come.

That’s the promise of the click.

In terms of clicks – or bells or whistles or just plain old feeling okay – it’s been a challenging period for me since I finished Ironman Louisville six weeks ago. (Has it really only been six weeks?!)

In the first week or two following Lou (my pet name for it), I was running (and swimming and cycling) off of pure excitement alone. I had finally qualified for Kona! I Every waking second was clicking. I would just think to myself: KONAAAAAAA!

That thought, when played on repeat in my brain, was plenty for short spurts of energy. But, that excitement does wear off after the first two weeks, and I was left with the normal hard work of preparing my body for my third Ironman in 15 weeks.

Yeah, okay, I absolutely understand that other people have done more in a season than I am attempting to do. But, it’s the first time my body, this body will undertake such a feat, and it’s been giving me signs that it’s not all that much put back together from the first one, let alone the second one.

So, the training – if you want to call it that – going into Kona has been a series of pathetic performances peppered with the occasional flicker that there once was a time when I was a contender. Very few clicks. Quite a few clunks.

But, in the past week or two, I’ve been feeling hopeful again. The promise of the click remains.

In my race reports from Louisville and Coeur d’Alene, I mentioned that I had some difficulties breathing. I mistakenly thought that maybe those were just normal reactions to hard efforts. As it turns out, my body – my lungs in particular – were trying to tell me that something wasn’t normal.

You have asthma, dumbass, said my lungs.

But, I didn’t really hear my lungs when they said this. However, I did hear my pulmonologist loud and clear when she said, “You are a pretty clear case of asthma. The pulmonary function tests are obvious.”

“Exercise induced asthma or asthma-asthma?” I asked.

She was fluent in Maria-speak, and understood my question perfectly. She responded, “Asthma-asthma.”

Whoa. Wow. Whaaaaaaat?

Talk about a punch in the lungs.

My first reaction was: How can that be? I don’t have attacks!

I was under the (mis)perception that people with asthma have regular (daily) violent attacks, in which they are gasping for air, grasping for their inhaler. I guess I’m watching too many movies or maybe it’s pharmaceutical commercials. 😉

Thankfully, that’s not my present condition, and as I’m starting to learn, violent attacks are not necessarily typical for most asthmatics. I’ve had some breathing trouble during racing and sometimes in training, but doesn’t everyone? Doesn’t everyone feel like they are sucking air through a straw sometimes? Doesn’t everyone have chest pain or tightness? Surely everyone wheezes just a little bit during hard efforts? And, the extreme fatigue – that’s got to be from all of the training, right?

Um, apparently not.

As my lungs said, I’m a dumbass.

I now realize that I’ve had some minor symptoms of asthma for as long as I can remember, which I never recognized as related to A.S.H.T.H.M.A. After all, those symptoms didn’t seem to affect my daily life or my racing all that much–even though, little by little, they were. But, as I crossed the finish line at Ironman Coeur d’Alene, I was hyperventilating and wheezing, grasping to get air into my lungs. It was severe enough that the volunteers ushered me into the med tent. At the time, I thought the episode was due to hard work. Denial, much? I mean, isn’t everyone hyperventilating at the end of an Ironman?

Uh, again, apparently not. In hindsight, I have to agree with my lungs. Dumbass. 

More problematically (at least for me), this asthma business affected my run performance at Louisville. Who cares about what happens after I cross the finish line, but if it starts affecting what’s happening during the race? Yeah, well, that’s a different matter entirely.

Yes, Louisville was a hot day, but that was not the main reason for my dismal run. I dealt with a series of issues all associated with getting air into my lungs from about mile 7 of the run until the end–and then a bit after that as well. My chest felt tight, my throat threatened to close, and I was audibly wheezing. If you Google asthma symptoms (which, naturally I’ve done a bajillion times now), those are pretty much the top three.

I felt extremely anxious about not being able to breathe, sure, but I was more concerned that a volunteer would hear the wheezing and take me off of the course.

Triathlete logic. It made complete sense at the time. Who cares about asphyxiation when there’s a Kona slot on the line?

My experience at Louisville is what finally drove me to the doctor. I knew something wasn’t right. Truth be told, I knew something wasn’t right after Coeur d’Alene, but I guess I needed a more dramatic sign. Not being able to breathe for 19 miles of a marathon definitely caught my attention. At first, I thought it was my heart. But, one of my athletes, Janine (thank you, my friend!), said I needed to see a pulmonologist. She’s a nurse, so she knows better than I do. Until that moment, I didn’t even know what a pulmonologist was.

So, here I find myself: less than a week away from my dream race with a freshly diagnosed case of asthma. But, with this diagnosis, I am hopeful that I can manage the symptoms. Don’t stop believing, folks. Just don’t do it! 

I’ve been researching as much as I can about how to manage it, how to keep the symptoms from getting worse, how to keep the condition from progressing. I’m on a daily steroid inhaler to help with the inflammation (for now), and I have a rescue inhaler that is a bronchodilator, which will help me in the case of active symptoms.

I’ve tried the bronchodilator for a few training sessions, and the difference in breathing when I don’t use it versus when I do is like night and day. Or, more specifically, it’s like clunk and click.

Now, I realize just how much I’ve been compensating for not being able to breathe fully, for basically training and racing in a hypoxic state for who knows how many years. I’ve had a few sessions using the bronchodilator, one just yesterday in which I felt the click. Or, maybe that was just oxygen in my lungs, in my blood, in my muscles. Either way, I felt pretty freaking awesome – that effortless, beautiful click.

Wow – who knew what a difference full oxygenation could make?

You can bet that little bronchodilator baby will be in my tri kit on the big island. So, yes, I’m feeling hopeful. My body is coming back around, and my lungs are in the process of opening up. It won’t be perfect, but it will be better than if I did nothing. I’d rather know what’s going on in my body, and work toward correcting it, than have another miserable run like I did at Ironman Louisville.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post, setting my ultimate goal for a Kona qualification. I have not taken my eyes off this prize in that time. I have worked so hard and sacrificed so much (more than I want to admit) to earn the right to start (and hopefully finish) this race.

Every decision. Every training moment. Every triumph and every heart break. Everything I’ve done for the past three years has been about October 11, 2014.

I don’t have any time or placement-oriented goals for Kona. But, I do have plenty of process-oriented goals: Have fun. Enjoy every moment. Execute the best race I have on that day. Savor each moment. Feel the experience in my muscles, my bones, and yes, my lungs. Run as slowly as is humanly possible down the finishing chute and high five every single person. Hug John’s parent’s when I see them on the sidelines. Get a picture of John and I with our finisher medals and leis.

Not asthma – or anything else – will keep me from having my moment, from feeling this click. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSwazdMMNkw

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