Greg's Running Blog

Since I have started running I visited numerous websites to learn about running schedules and training techniques. And every website that I have visited about starting up running had two recommendations that were always the same. 1) Go easy and 2) Get cleared by your physician. Now I don’t know if the second advice was there for my safety or for their safety, meaning if you start running based on some random website’s advice and you suddently drop dead your survivors would try to sue and say you died because of the stupid advice and the stupid website or if it was a genuine concern for your own safety but the warning was there nevertheless on every page. Go talk to your doctor. Get a basic physical. Make sure your doctor is OK with you running. So I went to my primary care physician and had a check up.

The last time I was there was in December for a cold that has turned into an ear infection and got some meds for it. That time I only saw the nurse practitioner not the doctor. We have a new doctor, our old one retired last August and I had yet to meet the new guy. So this time I finally met him. Really nice fellow, young but seemed like a straight shooter. Until he misdiagnoses me I’ll keep going back. So they do what they have to do; look in your ear, check your throat, listen to your lungs and heart, get your blood pressure and pulse, the basic stuff. Then they send you to a lab to get some blood drawn and you hope for the best. Since no one in my family had a heart attack ever, my people seem to die of cancer, there is really no indication of a looming heart attack so he did not send me to a cardiologist to get a stress test or an EKG. I kind of wish he did as those stress test are pretty expensive if insurance doesn’t pay for them and it would have been cool to check my VO2 Max and maximum heart rate with one of those machines and the treadmill test.

He also noted that I have been losing weight, I was at 216 lbs according to him just a month ago when I visited and I had been as high as 242 lbs at some point or another in my chart. I guess someone kept tabs on my weight all along, it’s only me who ignored the whole weight thing for all these years. He was concerned about my weight loss until I explained to him that I’m not sick and it’s deliberate. Then I told him about my target weight and he got a bit concerned and wanted to make sure that I will not end up on the other extreme of the spectrum. I assured him that would not happen. He also said that “he wishes all his patients could do what I’m doing”. It felt pretty good to get a good pat on the back like that.

So I got my labs back  the other day and I’m happy to say I passed. With flying colors. Notice how he added an exclamation mark and “very good labs” next to the “good” qualifier. I have looked at the lab result sand there is really not a whole lot I can make out of it, they have listed the measured values for every test and the range that is considered normal. Everything I had tested was normal. My cholesterol total was 138 with triglycerides at 53 and HDL Cholesterol at 44 which is not as high as I’d like it (that’s the good stuff) but I’m sure once I start eating decent again and get off my diet it will improve. My LDL (the bad stuff) was at 83 which is under the desirable 100 mark.

With all this I guess I am cleared for take-off and good to go as far as running goes. Now if I could just avoid a sport injury that would be awesome!

My Lab Result