Good morning, evening, afternoon, what ever time of day it may be. I have been slightly delayed with publishing this weeks blog, so decided to make it fit it win the end of the month. Once again I am back to update you on the progress of my challenge, I have completed 2 months now and I am still going strong. 59 runs in total so far this year but I have to say this last week has been a bit of a struggle. I have been struck down with a common cold which has made my running and exercising much harder than usual. When you're a bit under the weather, the last thing you want to do is to go out running/cycling. I have kept up with it though and plodded on, hopefully this will be the only hindrance I shall experience this year as it has really annoyed me. I have not been able to enjoy the running for the past few days, a part from this though everything is still going very good.
Since I last updated my blog, I have still been very active with both running and cycling. With the Saturday Parkrun, last week I ended up with a time of 19:49, which was 5 seconds slower than my previous best. I am still happy with this result though as I want to consistently get below the 20 minute marker and build from there. My competitive side though is slightly disappointed as I always want to improve, it will come with time. I ran the Parkrun again today in a time of 19:45, 1 seconds slower than my PB. With not feeling the best for most of the week I was very pleased with this. I still think if I had pushed just a little harder over 10 yards I would have had a new PB. IT is all good progress and I have now managed a sub 20 minute time for the past 4 weeks. Once again it was a great atmosphere with great support all the way - Even managed to get my friend Scott Nickson down, he may have been sick at the finish line...but that just shows a massive effort. I am hoping he will get the bug and come down more often.
After joining Red Rose Road Runners last week, I finally made it down to my first track session at the sports arena in Cottam. I have to say I loved it, there is something about running on the track that has set me off again, wanting more from running. The session involved a set of warm up drills - Which I have to say have made my legs ache more than any other time this year. This was followed by 4 x 400m laps of the track with a minutes rest in between. Finally we finished with a timed mile which is 4 laps in total, my time for this was 5:21 which I was delighted with as it was my fastest mile to date. With me not feeling 100% though I really think I have it in me to go below 5 minutes, we shall see. This is another target that I have in my sites and will look to beat in the upcoming weeks. As there are some really good runners that attend these sessions it will only make me become a better runner - All good fun as well, even though everyone has a competitive side.
On my bike, for the last 3 weeks I have covered over 100 miles each week which is making me feel a lot more confident about my summer bike ride. I ventured to Whalley last weekend after the parkrun and covered 35 miles on this session. I am targeting the hilly areas for my training as these will be the real testers come June time. I am starting to realise even more that this a massive task I have undertaken. Cycling 100 miles won't be an issue, it is then having to get up with tired legs and continue the process for another 9 days. Also the small task of running a mile after each of the bike rides, I am training hard though so hopefully it will all pay off. After the Parkrun today I spent an hour on the bike at the gym and covered just over 18 miles, still not feeling the best I forced myself to get some more miles under my belt. It will all be worth it come June 12th, bring it on! I know my training partners are getting on board as well. Steven has been working hard with both running and cycling. He has recently been away to watch Everton FC play the Young Boys in the Uefa Cup. Think the water over there contained 40% alcohol content, may have felt this for a few days. He was straight back on the training though with spinning and running, then I nice warm down with a trip to Brussels to test the local water again. Jordan I know has recently returned from a Hamstring injury and he is now back on the running. I'm sure he will get on his bike before June and do some training, knowing him he will turn up on the morning and proceed to cycle 1000 miles with no effort. :) He is also sampling the local water in Brussels and will be working his forearm muscles for the weekend.
Back on to my sob story for a short while, been looking through the diary again to put things in order. As I left it last time I had been diagnosed with Stage 2B Hodgkin Lymphoma which had a 90% survival rate - good times. Once the diagnosis had been made after all the tests, it was then explained about the what treatment I would be on and for how long. Prof Eden explained that they would start me off with 4-6 cycles of chemotherapy depending on how I was reacting to the treatment. Each cycle would last 4 weeks, some of the cycles it would be 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, giving my body time to recover from the treatment. If this all worked, then I would finish with 2 weeks of radiotherapy at the end. This would be a total of 10 days of treatment for this over the 2 week period.
I will go onto explain the full details of chemotherapy and what drugs I was given, I shall do it at a later date though. With chemotherapy, it is designed to target and kill the cancerous cells which have already formed in the body. It also affects the healthy cells which is what causes the side effects. Prof went through in full details of what these would be and I have listed a few below.
- Fatigue
- Tiredness
- Nausea and Vomiting
- Hair loss - not just off the top of your head, literally every hair you may have
- Increased infection
- Bruising and bleeding
- Loss of appetite
- Tender Skin, weak and brittle nails
- Memory loss and concentration issues
- Sleep problems
- Fertility issues
Once all this had been discussed, I was told that treatment would begin within a week. With the treatment being so soon, I literally had no time to think about anything, it was just all action. I think this helped though, as overthinking can sometimes do more bad than good.
I was told in the next few days I would have to have a central line fitted and a trip to the sperm clinic - from watching American pie I had high hopes for the latter trip. I didn't have a clue what a central line was at first. A central line is a long thin tube that is inserted into a vein in your chest. This is usually done under a local anaesthetic, this is how I had it done.They are used to give chemotherapy treatment and pump the drugs straight into your body. It saves having a needle put in every time you have treatment. They made a small cut in the skin near the collarbone and thread the tip of the line into a large vein above the heart. The other end of the line is tunnelled under the skin and comes out on your chest. I had this procedure done and it was weird, I had a plastic tube hanging out of my chest for the next few months at least. Later down the line this became a pain in the rear end but I had to get used to it being there.
As I just mentioned, fertility could well be an issue after chemotherapy. So the day after I had my central line fitted, they sent me off to the sperm clinic to store some away for future days. As I have arrived, the nurse greeted me and led me off into a room, just me and her. She was literally about 70 years old. In this room she showed me some magazines, give me a little pot and told me I know what I have to do and left me be. I have to complain about the magazines, they were definitely from the 70's and from what I saw razor blades weren't a common item back in those days. I think the most awkward thing was then having to take my tub back to reception (where my mum was sat waiting) and handing it over to the nurse. We did both laugh about it though. Later that day I got the results and I had a great sperm count, made me feel proper manly. They advised to leave it a couple of days and then return again to give another sample, the nurse must have fancied me. The purpose of this all was quite serious though, there was a chance that I may end up infertile and in the future this would be the only way of actually having children myself.
Right, I have talked on enough now - The next step of my journey would then be to start my chemotherapy and the hardest months of my life would be starting. For now though, I won't be blogging for a while, as I am taking my training to the African continent. I am going on holiday to The Gambia, looking forward to a nice break but I will still be running every day. Hoping to take part in the Gambia Parkrun, Gambia 10k and Gambia half marathon. None of these exist but these are the distances I want to cover in the week I will be away. Bring it on, it's only about 37oC every day so I will have to be getting up early to run.
As always - Feel free to sponsor me if you like :)
https://www.justgiving.com/end2endKH/
If you wish to comment or ask questions about anything, please go ahead - If it makes a difference to one person that's good enough for me.
You can also contact me a follow my journey with the details below.
Facebook - Karl Michael Hodgson
Twitter - @teddyhodgson
Instagram - teddyhodgson
Strava - Karl Hodgson
