Don't Push It

I begin this blog entry with a sigh. I understand everyone’s concern. Yes, I almost died, therefore I should take it easy. Rest is important. I get it. But to be honest, if I hear “don’t push it” one more time, I might just freak out.

See, when I say that I am running five kilometres only five months post-transplant, most non-runners are amazed and, often, aghast. Five whole kilometres?! How can this be? To many non-runners, this is an unfathomable distance to run. Many people train for months to accomplish a 5k running race. So for them, it’s a big deal and a hugely strenuous effort. It makes sense, then, for them to think that I am pushing it.

My running friends, however, who have logged hundreds of kilometres with me, will understand why five kilometres is really just baby steps. Five kilometres is me not pushing it. I used to pound back half-marathons every single weekend without a second thought. I would click off five-minute kilometres as my easy, resting pace. Now, when it takes me over seven minutes to run one single kilometre, I am horrified. (Yes, running pals, it’s true. Seven minutes.) So for me, I am barely going faster than walking pace. I hardly feel like I’m running. I don’t even break a sweat. And then someone tells me “well…don’t push it.”

The same could be said for weight training. I recently joined a gym again, upon the realization that all the good intentions in the world would never materialize into me lifting weights at home. For four months I had been telling my husband that I would strength train at home, transforming my stick arms into bulging biceps and my spindly legs into trunks of steel. And for four months I never did. So I joined a gym with childcare and now I go twice and week and pump iron. I use the term loosely and with much glee. This skinny body “pumping iron” is hilarious. I couldn’t push it even if I wanted to. I do the machine circuits, lifting a fraction of what I once could do. I try to do push-ups and collapse onto my face. Baby steps.

On my first day at the gym, I was warming up on the elliptical beside a woman who struck fear into my heart. As I stood on my elliptical, not pushing it, she looked like she was attacking her machine. I was waiting for her to mutter, “Die, Elliptical, DIE!!” I didn’t dare giggle.

On my second day at the gym, I went to a “Bodypump” class, which is essentially a guided weight-lifting session with wild music and lots of excessive cheering. I had no idea what I was doing. When I got in, all the women were grabbing barbells and sliding weights onto them. I have never used a barbell in my life. So I did what any observant person would do – I copied and dutifully slid on some weights, then used the clampy thing to hold them on. I looked around me and tried to gauge how much weight I should put on the bar. That woman looked retirement age, so I could probably lift more than her (I couldn’t). That other woman looked really skinny, so she couldn’t be much stronger than me (she was). I grabbed all the other equipment that the other women were grabbing, plus a few extra things just in case and then music began.

Lord have mercy. I clearly put too much weight on my bar. The retired woman was kicking my rear end. I tried to find a good time to pause and take off some of the plates without looking like an idiot, but there was no pause. So I suffered through. Then the music stopped and the clanking of weight plates was everywhere. What was happening? I looked around in a panic – were they making their bars lighter or heavier? Lighter, thank goodness. But how much lighter? Since I had no idea what was coming, I had no idea what to do. So I guessed, again, and got it wrong, again.

Clearly I don’t know my own strength.

But then I told someone else this story, thinking it was pretty funny, and instead of encouraging me or being impressed that I even tried a weight-lifting class, that person said, you guessed it, “well…just don’t push it.”

But what I’ve realized is this: survivors push it. That’s how we survive. We push through chemo, we push the odds, we push our doctors, we push for treatment, we push against treatment. We don’t sit around waiting for death. We run from it. For five whole kilometres.

When I had pneumonia, I didn’t push anything. I sat on the couch or in the hospital and watched TV. I did nothing. And, within days, I became depressed and felt like a sick loser.

And that happened because running is not just exercise. It’s not just about getting your heart rate up and breathing hard. Running is transformative, it banishes depression, it makes you think that anything is possible, it makes you feel part of the living again. And that’s why I push it.

Let’s be honest. Runners, myself included, don’t always want to run. We don’t love it all the time. It’s cold outside. It’s snowing. I have an aversion to wind whipping in my face just like most of you. Most of the time I’d rather just have a hot bath and a nap. But where would that get me? Yes, I need rest, but I also need exercise, even more than the average person does: survivors who exercise (vigorously) have a much lower risk of relapse.

So I will push it, thank you very much. And I will keep running for my life.