Resting and running
Thursday 20 September 2007, 9:09 am
I went to go see the smoking nurse yesterday to get more nicotine patches (one day soon I will be completely nicotine free). Each time I go she takes three readings: carbon monoxide, blood pressure and heart rate. My carbon monoxide still hasn’t dropped to zero, which it should be for a non-smoker. Apparently, the fact that I’m asthmatic has an impact on this as well. My blood pressure is always in the normal range, which is lucky considering that I’ve been an on and off smoker for over half of my life.
My resting heart rate is usually normal as well, but it usually in the upper ranges — between 85 and 95. This has been the case for a while now. This time, however, my heart rate was 65. The nurse didn’t comment on it, but I was pretty pleased. Apparently, there really is something to this regular exercise thing. I’m sure not smoking for the past four and a half months has helped, as well.
In other news, Joanne and I ran for 18 minutes yesterday. We’re very close to being able to run all the way around Clapham Common, as well. My personal goal is to be able to run for 30 minutes, which should translate into running twice around the Common. This, in turn, will mean that the next time we run a 5k, we will run the whole thing. No walking.
Thursday 20 September 2007, 11:13 am
Go Jeff! Kicking the smokes is hard - I know it took me over 5 years to get to the position where I hadn’t smoked in a year!
Now if I can follow your lead and start exercising again …
Thursday 20 September 2007, 5:21 pm
are you using your heartrate monitor? I bet your actual resting heartrate is lower than that - test it when you first wake up in the morning … the next thing to do is a VO2 max test - that’s fun hurt!
congrats on the 5K!!!
Thursday 20 September 2007, 7:06 pm
Amazing what regular exercise will do for you! As for smoking, I have been off them for over one year now. I can’t imagine *being* a smoker now. Best thing (besides the health benefit) is my sense of taste and smell are much better.
Monday 24 September 2007, 11:18 am
@ross Yeah, kicking the smokes ain’t easy. This is nth time I’ve tried to quit in about 5 years. I’m still on the patches, though, so even though I’m not smoking I’m still an addict!
@david I haven’t been using it, but I’m going to download the docs and give it a go when I go running today.
@stephen Pretty incredible. I don’t know why I started smoking again. It’s one of the three stupidest things I’ve ever done.
Monday 1 October 2007, 2:25 pm
Food for another blog post!! :D
Tuesday 2 October 2007, 1:05 am
@ross The only problem would be choosing. I’ve quit and restarted so many times now, I’ve actually lost track of how many times I’ve quit.
Sunday 11 May 2008, 7:59 pm
[...] been spending a fair bit of time on the treadmill at the gym, though, and I’ve been using the heart rate monitor David gave me to do a lot of heart rate [...]