My dad had a stroke and is barely going at all. It has inspired me to start going harder again just to stay as healthy and enjoy as much life as I can. I’d rather go out going hard than waiting.
I now have two older and also trying to go hard again triathlon friends. One is also recovering from a stroke from two years ago. He won Clydesdale at his past tri last weekend. My two friends are both enormous guys. I’m the small one. They’ve raced each other since before I knew either of them. Two of us have kids on the same swim team and one has a grandkid in the team.
I say this to say I am following and proud of your progress! I also want to live my life by doing not waiting.
Sorry to hear about your dad and friend. I got told aged 12 or 13 I couldn’t do anything because of achiles issues. Lasted to 18 then my dad had 2 heart attacks and a double bypass and I realised I’d follow his path or I could do something different and deal with a bit of ankle pain. In reality I’ve just learnt to live with the pain and supported the retirement fund and college education savings of several physios 
Struggling with swimming this week, just got no strength. And so very slow which is frustrating me. It is only 1 week back though, and 4x 2500m sessions. Zwifting is going OK, power is coming back and endurance I’ve tested up to an hour. May try going longer tomorrow.
It’s funny though, I’ve had 3 full falls this week and several near misses. Which is more than in total post stroke up to now. I think in the immediate aftermath I was very careful as knew my right side was weak. Now my brain thinks I’m back to normal and then that catches me out. So combined with the clopidogel and asprin those falls have left me looking like I’ve been through a gang initiation ceremony
Brain still gets foggy later in the day or if I miss my lunchtime 30min nap. But otherwise I’m back working almost as before.
1 Like
OK, been a little while since I updated this.
TLDR: Things going well, and I completed my first (sprint) tri yesterday. Major progress.
Fuller waffle for those browsing whilst at work: Getting back after the heart op (PFO) was a lengthy affair, mainly I think because I was returning to work in parallel. I was fortunate to have an CT scan of my heart to look at the rogue circumflex, and that showed that it’s in a benign location and also that the PFO closure has been successful. So now discharged from all medical stuff, just have asprin for rest of life and an annual cholesterol blood test (that I was doing anyway).
Back in the hands of my tri coach for the last month, as he takes the lead again from the physio led programme. Specifically I’m back to 3 squad swims a week, 1 pilates (used to be 2-3), 1 strength and conditioning 1:1 in gym with my physio (used to be none). Then cycling and running is a couple of treadmill/zwift and then one outside of each.
Only been running outside for 3 weeks, so yesterday was a real leap.
(ignore the Mo’vember Mo - it’s deliberately obnoxious but has raised of a grand for men’s health).
Finished in 1:19 with a 32min solo bike and a 25:05 run around a hilly loop which is really heartening in terms of being about 15 mins total off PB for a sprint (I’m known as diesel for my single speed nature).
So that’s the ‘tick’ and next step is the Half Ironman in late January.
But what’s the big picture. Well the feeling in the right is still AWOL in places, and gets worse as I tire. My balance is still iffy (feels like being 3 cocktails into a session) and so whilst I’ve managed to ride the roadbike then not attempted the TT bike yet. Each night when I go upstairs to bed it feels like my right leg has run a marathon. And where previously I thought that meant I needed to go to the gym, build more strength, in reality I’m finding I do have the strength and endurance, but the brain is receiving ‘heavy’ messages from the limbs when I’m tired. So I need to reinterpret those messages as they mean different things than they used to.
At the moment then my training load needs to be way lower than previously, especially really intense anaerobic sessions that take me several days to recover from, and quickly lead to cumulative exhaustion.
I’ve gone through the ‘train hard to recover’ and am now accepting of there being a new normal, albeit a new normal that doesn’t mean life has to be limited compared to pre stroke. I am very very fortunate to have been left with enough brain to function at this level. Could have been very very different. And so if now running at 5:20 pace is as hard as 4:30/km used to, that’s all good. Who really gives a shit you either podium (never at that level) or you are a finisher.
1 Like
