The transition from my ‘Lympho-mania’ state continues and it has become ever-easier to resist the cacoethes. The immediate and churning emotional response of a month ago was temporary; let’s face it, it was just too draining to keep up indefinitely and it was never going to be something that I could endure for more than a brief time. It was clearly sink or swim time and I’m glad to report that I am gently treading water quite happily. In fact I’ve reached a surprisingly contented place.
Patience has never been one of my virtues but one thing I’m exceptionally good at is following a plan. If I was completing one of those personality questionnaires where I had to select words to describe me, meticulous and its many synonyms would feature prominently (fastidious, painstakingly precise, rigorous to the point of obsession, are just a few adjectives that have been levelled at me in the past!). Not for nothing does my Coach refer to me as ‘Robot’ – I have a knack at doing everything exactly as instructed. That’s not to say I’m a rote automaton; I need to understand the whys and the wherefores first, but then I can take on a task and follow it to the letter. This has been a life-line in the past three weeks and has almost completely removed emotion from the equation; life has been easy.
Training cycle №1 is over. For the number-nerds reading this, some figures for you; training hours have come out at 15:35 in week 1, then 16:20 in week 2 and, a finally 13:20 in what was an easier week 3. Associated weekly Training Stress Score (TSS) is 915, 900 and 769 respectively. I finished this 3-week cycle with a Chronic Training Load (CTL) of 98.1. The target is to maintain CTL around 100 during this 12-week testing phase, so Coach is doing well in her role of managing the bigger picture too!
Levels of anticipation are high as I embark on the next cycle. This means I can add the next layer of ‘lympohoedema management’, and all the exercise that I do from now on will be with the added benefit of full compression on my swollen leg. Two of the four cornerstones for treatment of lymphoedema are compression and exercise, and I’m genuinely excited about combining these on a full-time basis. Up until now I have been wearing full leg compression for recovery and compression socks during exercise, but not both together. It is my expectation that we will see a clear improvement and I hope to be able to report good things in the coming weeks.
As an aside, I’ve also got a truly thrilling prospect in the pipe-line, so watch this space for a special update in the next couple of weeks.
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