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I ran a mile. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 weeks ago by remotelove@lemmy.ca to c/fitness@lemmy.world

It's been roughly 3 months since I was diagnosed with sky-high blood pressure and renal artery stenosis. I also spent a night in the ICU after a false alarm for a stroke. (I was on a super strong blood pressure med for the night and it required continuous supervision.)

Since then, I started taking walks. At first it was a quarter of a mile, then gradually pushed up to 5-6 miles, every day. Sometimes even up to 8-10 miles if time allowed.

Jogging started slow, as I could only handle about 1/8 mile at a time. [Insert knee strain injury here]. I worked up to 1/4 mile run + 1/4 mile walk for as many reps as I could handle for my daily routine.

Rucking once or twice a week was added and am almost at 40lbs of weight. (It hurts, but has taught me pain management.)

Sprints once a week for 10 seconds for about 5-8 reps somehow worked itself in to the routine. (Dunno where that came from.)

Finally this evening, I ran a full continuous mile and celebrated with a round of sprints after that.

I am 46 and hadn't ran a full mile in over 20 years. 3 months ago I thought I was going to die walking up a hill. Walking one solid mile was a huge milestone for me not so long ago.

I guess the point of this post is just a checkpoint and a reminder to myself that things are actually getting better and there are more milestones to reach.

Cheers.

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[-] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 11 points 2 weeks ago

Fuck yeah, well done mate.

If I can offer some advice from when I started running,

If something hurts take a break, missing two days beats 3 months of pain and rehabilitation etc. Swap it with swimming or something, I learnt that the hard way when my knee hurt on a 5k and then the next day did 5k and it hurt and again and again for 2 weeks until I could hardly walk. Turned out the main cause was always running on the same slope of road, building muscle on the outside of my leg pulling thr knee cap across.

So if it hurt rest and run on varied terrains don't do all the runs on the same left or right slope on the edge of a road etc.

Secondly what really helped me with increasing my distance was when I got running i didn't stop, I just ran slower as I got tired.

Doesn't matter if you're running slower then a walk just keep the same motion and keep pushing.

Best of luck with it.

Also runners highs are real and great, when I hit 8k I started getting them and felt awesome after.

this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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