Blood pressure saga

I had a low key week wrt running. Managed only two runs this week, a 11k on Tuesday and 7.5k on Sunday. I have been suffering from some very bad cold for the last 3days or so, Sunday was the worst day. But, the short run helped me clear my throat & chest (and breathing).

The highlight of the week, was a silly blood pressure test I took at a Electronic store. I know it sounds stupid, but they had this fancy gadget for taking readings, so my friends and I just took that for a lark (although I have always had a feeling that I am a good candidate for high BP) and the reading said 85 - 140. (this clearly according to the administrator was not in the normal range 80-120). And that almost screwed up my Sunday afternoon, here I try to do everything right - Exercise regularly & more, don't smoke, am actually my below ideal weight and I have to suffer this reading. I was waiting to get home to start to reading what this meant and found some interesting stuff -

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/blood-pressure.htm (this definitely is not the best but its got heavy duty SEO done on it!)

But the important one is from my favorite health portal - Discovery health

http://health.discovery.com/encyclopedias/illnesses.html?article=31
"High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is defined as a systolic blood pressure reading greater than 140 mm Hg or a diastolic blood pressure reading greater than 90 mm Hg."
"How is the condition diagnosed?
Adults should have their blood pressure measured at least every two years. The diagnosis of high blood pressure is made on the basis of two or more blood pressure readings. It is diagnosed if two or more readings show a systolic blood pressure greater than 140 or a diastolic blood pressure greater than 90. Other tests may be ordered to look for conditions causing the high blood pressure."


All of this means that I am a boarderline case, just need to relax more and stop getting excited when people tick me off, plus maybe try my hand at meditation (but running is like meditation for me, its so calming). Plus I need to take more readings in the coming months to get some clarity as suggested by Discovery Health.

And yes I also need to go for a complete health checkup. I don't even know my blood group. So lotsa catchup up to do....

Runs continue...

This week I managed only three runs - Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday with 11k, 15k and 10k runs. My right calf was feeling stiff Wednesday onwards, but decided to run on Saturday with it. It has not worsened and I managed to do the two runs quite comfortably (but my legs still not feeling completely normal).

Looking forward to the next week....

Mumbai marathon update & post marathon ...

I just realised I had written one post on my Bombay marathon run but its disappeared.

So will just do a quick recap of the last one month. I had a decent Mumbai marathon on Jan 18, 2009. Managed a time of 5hr 23min, which was good given my preparation levels and recent injuries. Did the first half in about 2hr 11min (which is what I was hoping to do) but after that my lack of training caught up and then it was a lot of run and walk. I got a good tip from one Apollo Hospital medic on quick relief from chin splits during a run (more on that later).

Post marathon I took a weeks break and after that I have managed to run twice in the last week of Jan and managed four runs of 10-11k last week. So things are starting to pickup but will now need to get the Sunday run upto 15-20km.

And yes now I have a proper roadbike and it should be fun riding it. More on the bike in the next post.

Over the past one year I have not been regular with my blog, first it was Facebook addiction and now its due to Twitter. Do check my twitter profile and if you are already on twitter you could follow me there - www.twitter.com/girishmallya

Will work hard to be regular with my blog posts.