I asked my medical oncologist today if this first cycle of chemotherapy could be looked at as a baseline — would it be repeatable over the next five rounds or should I expect something different each time? I was delighted when she said this should be the pattern and my experience should be similar each cycle. With the exception of two days of bone pain, and some general tiredness, I haven’t been bothered by a lot of the usual side effects.
read moreTag: Running with cancer
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Finding a (new) baseline
When I signed up for my first half-marathon years ago, the idea of creating a training plan seemed daunting. But slowly, the plan did come together, helped by advice from my BFF, and other runners who had half-marathons and longer distances under their belt.
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Pre-race jitters: Chemo starts this week
I did a thing this last week — posting on my Facebook page about my diagnosis and what comes next with treatment. Though I’m not the biggest Facebook user these days, it seemed the best way to let my really wide circle of friends and colleagues know about what was going on in my life. I wanted to be able to tell my story first hand. It was also starting to feel weird that Facebook was the one place where I wasn’t talking about my diagnosis, and I didn’t want to be self-censoring my choice of platforms anymore.
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Everything changes
This post started last weekend, celebrating my first run on the mountain — a glorious way to spend Easter Sunday. After testing my legs on the treadmill at the gym, I was ready — though nervous — to see what it might feel like to run on the trails for the first time since surgery. And it was lovely, in all the ways you imagine.
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Souvenirs and self-image
Today marks four weeks since my surgery. I don’t know why that seems like an important date, but that is how it feels. More so because I’m still in that liminal space between diagnosis, surgery, and discovering what comes next based on a still unknown pathology report.
Slowly, my incisions are fading into what will be stories to tell to future training partners. It never occurred to me that these external marks would be a talisman of sorts — a reminder that my body can do hard things and heal from trauma that wasn’t invited in.
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Milestones and mild weather
Two Fridays ago, I unlocked a post-surgery milestone — I walked a 5k loop I’ve run many times before. I was surprised that I didn’t feel left out because I couldn’t join the evening runners who were out on the same route. Rather, I was enjoying the movement and that I wasn’t thinking about the effort. For a moment I could pretend that I’m not still waiting on my pathology results and my first post-op follow up appointment with my surgeon.
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Tapering? For surgery?
I was a little surprised when my phone showed that it was the hospital calling on Tuesday afternoon. My pre-surgery screening was already scheduled for Thursday, so maybe it was to move my appointment time? No, it was to confirm that my surgery will happen on Thursday, 8 February. Short taper.
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A new take on a training block.
Before I was diagnosed, my last in-person race was a 10k in May. It was my ‘home race’ where I usually ran the half, but this time I had picked the shorter distance. In my head, I was on the cusp of breaking up with longer distances — my entry into the Chicago marathon had gotten waylaid by the pandemic and looking at turning 60 felt like a good time to reframe why I was racing.
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So … how this started.
It will no doubt seem odd to a lot of people that one of the first things I started thinking about after my diagnosis was what would this mean for my running habit? If you’ve followed my Instagram, especially my running journal, it won’t surprise you at all. My current running habit dates from turning 50, and in the decade since I’ve accumulated a collection of finisher’s medals from various distances and been a member of a running team for half that time.
Running from hysteria 