I did a full 9K walk Monday evening, and once again, I didn't need to stop at all. There's was a brief span of time when I expected to feel some sort of chest pain, but the pain never occurred. Go figure. I have no idea why this might happen, and it's very tempting to tie this to my having taken the nitroglycerin tablet two Sundays ago. But as I wrote before, it was hard to find information on the longer-term effects of nitroglycerin: most sources talked about how the medicine tended to take effect within five minutes, leaving metabolites behind. My own utterly inexpert theory is that something psychosomatic occurred: I took the pill, and my heart "learned" or "realized" that it didn't need to clench up every time I went for a walk. I'm very likely wrong in this, and I'll ask my docs about it on July 12 when I see them. For the moment, all I can say is that I'm enjoying this little slice of normalcy. It's nice not to worry about chest pains just from walking. How long this might last, I have no clue.
No idea what has changed, but it's a good thing. I reckon you'll be back to those 20K jaunts soon enough. Keep it up!
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