Great Lung Workouts

6:00am: It felt so good to get up early this morning knowing that I was going to be going for a walk with J Bell. What made it even more special was being joined by Mandi AND her momma! Mandi's parents are still in town and we have been living it up for the past handful of days. One thing I want to make very clear to all of you guys: I may have taken the last three days off, but I have been VERY active. We've been running around a lot with her parents and getting stuff done, but we have also had a ton of pool time. And when I talk pool time, I'm not talking about lounging around on a raft enjoying a nice cold beverage (although I did do a little of that too). We played so many water games this weekend that it actually started to get a little weird. Especially when we would make up games or think of a game that you generally play on land and then brought it into the water.

My brothers and one of my best friends were also around this weekend and got to join in on the fun which made it extra special. I would say that Friday through Sunday we spent about 10 hours in the pool, of which 9 hours were spent playing games. Most of the games we played required a lot of moving and jumping and swimming around like maniacs. We also did a lot of hold your breath for the longest (which I won exactly 0 times) and how many times and back we could swim across the pool on one breath (again, 0 wins). To say that my lungs got some great workouts in this weekend would be the understatement of the year. I was hacking and coughing up a ton of stuff all weekend and I was able to spit most of it out of the pool. I definitely think I did see some floaters though. Sorry guys :)

Well, anyways, today's walk was good. It was actually a pretty nice temperature outside and my lungs felt decent when I got up. They're certainly getting a little tighter the further out I get from my hospital stay, but some of that is to be expected. All I can do is continue to be active and be faithful with my treatments to put myself in the best position to succeed. As the walk got under way I was able to cough up some pretty thick, but clear, stuff that cleared the old air bags out a bit. Generally, that's what happens: Tight when I start, but start to open up about 5 minutes into it. I can tell you one thing for sure also, my lungs felt different (a good different) all day today and I'm almost certain it was because of my morning walk.

Total Distance: 2.0 miles Time: 38'02"

3:00pm: I was also very much looking forward to getting back to the gym today. It's only been 3 days since I was last in a gym, but it honestly feel like forever ago. The rest was nice though and I actually felt very strong today. It was a good thing too. Mandi's dad joined us and I certainly didn't want to get shown up by the old man (I know he doesn't read this and we'll keep this between us, right Nancy?). It was a great workout and felt so good to get back to. I keep all of my lifting sessions written down in a notebook (in terms of weight and sets) and it is pretty amazing the progress I've made over the last couple of months. When this all started, Mandi and I were pretty much using the same weights. Problem is, she weighs about 70lbs. less than me. But seriously, if you want to improve upon your strength, I can't stress enough to you guys to bring a little notebook and jot everything down. Then, each week, try to either increase the weight or reps of every lift you do. You will be amazed at the progress you can make in such little of a time.

Total Distance for Day: 2.0 miles