dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I performed the stress test and echo today.  The test went well.  I will count it as 2 miles because I was going for about 19 minutes, but I honestly don't know the distance (and I am sure it was actually shorter but the effort seems about right).

I found out that I have acute pericarditis.  So basically, I have some fluid buildup around my heart which appears to have been caused by the illness I had earlier this year (end of May).  Apparently it was an added stressor on my system for the last few months, and eventually my body could no longer handle the stress.  I need to take large doses of ibuprofen to try and get rid of the fluid, and if that doesn't work there are other things to try.

The good thing is that I don't have any heart problems.  Heart function is fine.  There was some minor tricuspid prolapse (backflow of blood into the atria), but evidently 80% of people have that to a very minor degree and I don't need to worry about that. 

I gave myself a couple days after the stress test to see if my body relaxing and taking lots of ibuprofen would help give me a jump start on recovery.  I ran 4 miles today, and the results were encouraging.  My HR was still elevated, but it was not as high as it has been recently.  HR was around 140 on average.  It has been a while since I have been able to run more than a few hundred meters without my HR jumping into the high 140's and 150's, so it was nice to see 130's flashing on the screen at times during the run.

I ran out the same way I went yesterday, but I added on a little extra and ended up with about 4.5 miles.  Average HR was 137 for the run.  I picked up the pace just a little bit for about 50-70m at the end to let my legs feel what it is like to get going faster.  Total time for the run was 34:08.