Running With Asthma

Hi and thank you for writing! Again, I’m not a Dr., but I will share with you my experience with this. First, looking back at my childhood, I can see that I had EIA and did not know it. My ’symptoms’ began showing up in PE class in middle school. My dad had regular allergy induced asthma as a child and grew out of it in his teen years. While running the required 1/2 mile at the beginning of class, in the required timeframe, I “couldn’t keep up” and thought I was just out of shape. Through high school, I wanted to be on the cross country team but when I practiced, I was immediately tired. Like, I had to stop and walk within the first two minutes of running. I walked and jogged the rest of the way but I mistakenly thought that I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t good enough. Interestingly enough, this is the same time frame when my parents began having problems with their marriage. I did not know it at the time, but, my 13 year old brain translated their problems into a self esteem issue for me: I’m not good enough. EIA is REAL. Please do not hear me as dismissing symptoms or that it is all in the head. But, what I am now exploring in my own story, is the possibility that my feelings of not being good enough shows up, to this day, in my running. Running is something I want to do, but it is a competitive sport that puts me in an arena where I am constantly comparing myself to other runners. Can I keep up? Can I do what my coach expects of me? Even this very second as I type, my lungs are tightening just thinking about it. I will be posting more on this topic in the near future so keep reading the posts. But, let me also answer a few questions for you. Encourage your daughter to run consistently all year long, not just during XC or track season. The reason is that once a person stops running for a few weeks or months, the body then needs to start over again with the new season. If she wants to be competitive, she needs to be consistent throughout the year. She needs to keep her base miles, her foundation, really strong so that when she begins a new season of competition she will have a steady base to use as a spring board for improvement. There is a lot of mental stress that will occur if she has not been running and then all of the sudden begins a new season with the expectation of doing better than last year. If you read through my posts, you will see that every year I participate in a 7 week 5K series. Each year I improve my PR by about 4 minutes or so but this is only because I run all year long. If I were to keep starting and stopping, I would not have this kind of improvement. If she is serious about wanting to run, and is having symptoms, you should take her to a pulmonary specialist who has patients who run. But, in my experience, two things have become the cornerstone for my improvement: consistency and mental strength. Self esteem, self image, value, self worth; these are all huge barriers to any sport if they are in the negative category. If your daughter keeps running, she will learn mental strength and mental toughness. Running has a way of putting these into perspective real quick. Again, thanks for writing and please keep reading as I work through this myself.

Hi Amanda, How soon is your test? Lungs need time to adjust, especially with asthma. Getting stronger and faster is possible, but it takes a bit longer for those of us with asthma. Without knowing your time schedule, I would offer these generic suggestions: Make sure you are running on a regular basis to train. As in, all year long. I get many inquiries from people who are starting cross country, or track, or have an upcoming test, and they are trying to cram in a bunch of training in order to accomplish the short term goal. This is very stressful not only on the lungs, but the mind as well. The absolute best way to train is to be consistent and try to run 3-4 times per week. The second piece of advice is to go farther in your training runs than your test goal. In other words, if you want to run the 1.5 mile faster for the test, then in your practice runs you should be running 3 to 4 miles, ideally closer to 5. Runners’ World magazine is an excellent resource for training exercises, you should look them up. But I would say that in a course of a week, you should do some easy runs and some interval training as well as a weekly longer run. The easy longer runs will build your endurance and the interval training will build your speed. Interval training is also known as speedwork. You have to practice going fast so that your body knows how to react. You should do this in intervals. Again, check Runners’ World for the exact workout regimens for beginners. Also, get a stopwatch and pace yourself. The second half of your race should be faster than the first. This is called ’splits.’ The stopwatch will tell you if you are starting out too fast and then conking out towards the end. Go a little slower at first, and then speed up in the second half. My last piece of advice would be to do cardio exercise all year long regardless of an upcoming test or running season. The reason is that your lungs need a strong foundation to rely on when it comes time to take a PT test or run a race. With asthma, you can’t build a foundation and then sprint for the test at the same time. You need to run consistently all year long, and then when it comes time to take the test, your lungs will say sure! We can do that! And your mind will, too. And here is one more P.S. If you have it in your mind that you can’t do this, you won’t. Training your lungs in practice runs will also train your mind that you CAN do this. Your mind can easily short circuit your test, even if your body and lungs are ready for the challenge. The mind is powerful. Don’t let it trip you up.