Week 10: Climb for Clean Air – Deal With Sickness

Plan for this week:

Monday:  Interval Training

Tuesday: Strength Training with Weston

Wednesday:  Long Cardio

Thursday:  REST DAY

Friday:  Strength Training

Saturday:  Long Hike – Camp Muir!

Sunday:  Interval Training

This week is really rough.   Both of my girls were sick and I caught whatever they have and pretty much shut this week down.   I have a hard time to do anything with less than 6 hours sleep, let alone less than 4 hours.     With both of my girls sick, I slept roughly 2-4 hours every night.   I can handle the physical stress, but the emotional stress due to sick child was bringing me down slowly.   Thursday came around, I was as sick as my children.   Luckily I bounced back quite fast and able to join the training hike on Saturday.    I felt a bit down because I didn’t do what I was planning to do but ended up to make peace with it because life happen and you have to make the best out of it.

Monday:

I was starting to feel under the weather on Monday.   I woke up at 5am, with the whole intention to leave the house at 5:30 to go to the gym but I really can’t make my body move.   This is not just mentally, but physically.   I was exhausted and feeling really blah.   I ended up staying home and get a few more needed sleep.

Tuesday:

I literally feel like I was dragging my feet to go see Weston, my trainer.   I did it tho and worked out with him, even though I feel like I was going to faint multiple times during it.   We focused on my lower body exercise and I can’t actually remember what were the routines, but one thing I do remember – we did a hard work out.   Overall, it was a great work out.

Wednesday:

My youngest daughter was sick the day before and warrant an ER trip at 3am, which totally shut my Wed morning work out.   I did managed to run at my neighborhood for an hour, about 4 miles in the afternoon for my long cardio work out.  I noticed how much I struggle during that run due to lack of sleep and just not feeling too hot in general.

Thursday:

My oldest daughter caught whatever her sister had, and it basically identical day with Wed.   I had very little sleep and it started to catch up on me.   My energy level dip down to zero and I did not do anything at all other than sleeping

Friday:

Lot of going on today.   I’m still recovering, and even though both of my girls are healthy again today – I’m still feeling really crummy.   I have to catch up with work as well, since I practically off in the last couple days.   My plan to sneak the work out in the late afternoon/early evening just went nowhere.   I ended up getting my gear ready for Saturday training hike.

Saturday:

 

Me Walking at Muir Snowfield

This is a highlight of my week.   We left the house around 6am and head to Ashford.   This was the first group training hike I did with the rest of the climbers on this event.   We met at Paradise parking lot at 9am and started to walk roughly around 10am.   I struggled to breathe almost right away.   I knew it going in since the high altitude (Paradise is 5,800ft), and the fact that I just recovered from the virus that I just had, plus the 40lbs backpack would make my lung work twice as much.   I was the end of the line of team, and just walked slow and steady.   After 20 minutes, I finally able to stabilize my breathing and walk somewhat normal.   Unfortunately, I was waaaay behind from the rest of the team but kudos to the volunteer guide that walk patiently behind me and kept encouraging me to keep on going.    We met with the rest of the group at the first stop, and it looked like they were there about 10 mins before me.  Not so bad, I thought.    I sat down for 5 mins and we were already told to get ready.    I was right with the team afterwards until we were on top of Avalanche Chute, then the really steep climb on the Chute started to get me and I was behind again.    We stopped for lunch a little bit past Pebble Creek (7,000ft) and I felt my chest starting to hurt, more than usual.

 

Me at 8,000ft - Mt. Rainier

I kept walking though, slow and steady and really focus on my breathing, did a pressure breathing and rest step pretty much all the way.    We climbed another 1,000 feet and I felt headache starting to developed, early sign of altitude sickness.   I was frustrated since we only at 8,000ft but I knew that my lung finally told me to stop.   My stubborn head probably can keep going but since I’m going with the group, we had to turn around at certain time so with a heavy heart I looked at my husband and told him that I need to turn around.    It turned out to be a good decision, since an hour after we walked down, I felt some gurgling when I breathe, which indicated that I had developed some fluid in my lung.   We were safely return at the parking lot about a couple hours later and head home.

Sunday:

I decided to rest.   After a long hike and fluid in my lung, I can’t see any other way for me to do anything.

Fundraising:

I am waaaay past my goal but generous people out there still contribute to my climb.    I’m so thankful to everybody’s support and will give my best (and more).

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One Response to “Week 10: Climb for Clean Air – Deal With Sickness”

  1. Way to go on trying the climb! After the week you had, it would have been easy to not go. How awesome that your husband was there with you!!

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