Eight Miles Indoors

NSP Community Center indoor track 8 mi in 1:06:40, pace 8:20. A completely uneventful run, except for the rising red sun peeking through the clouds as we ran along the windows on the south side of the track. I intended just to run a comfortable pace, not so much to train as to remind my legs what they are there for, and that turned out to be marathon pace. If I run this pace most of the time in the marathon, I can afford to walk for 30 seconds at every water stop and still finish in 3:45. Good enough; for once I’m not going for a PR. In 2006 I ran six marathons, all under 3:50. What if I tried to run all of the 2007 marathons under 3:45? It’s a worthy goal. Of course that won’t happen if we run the Moose Mountain Marathon, where even the ruggedest athletes need more than four hours. But that one could be the exception to the rule.

Two more runs before the marathon, four miles Wednesday and three Friday, both at MP. Some walking Saturday to keep muscles loose, pasta for lunch AND dinner, and early to bed Saturday night.

Thalidomide comes in a 28-capsule card, four rows of seven punch-out capsules. You take it before going to bed. I punched out the last one on this card last night, and got one last really good night’s sleep. On Thursday I’ll have labs drawn, and then will see the doctor two weeks from today to assess the progress of the treatment. Nothing cures myeloma, so the goal is a “complete remission,” which means that the cancer markers are in the “normal” range for a person without cancer, or a “near-complete” remission, which means they didn’t quite get there. Then you wait and live life to the max until the numbers come back up again to a dangerous level. My last remission was near-complete, but it took three of these 28-day prescriptions to get there. It lasted about three years. Let’s hope that does it this time. So far, the side effects have been quite modest: Slight bradycardia, slight weight gain (2 or 3 lb), and a couple of unmentionables (a guy gets to have some secrets; I’m not Runner Susan after all). No neuropathy, which is the side effect that would require cessation of that treatment.