Today I had my final test for my heart – a treadmill stress test with an echo cardiogram. This was good as it took care of my daily run (which I missed yesterday – drat!)
I guess I wasn’t supposed to go swim 2500 yards before I took the test but oh well… I had and we just had to deal.
There is something important they don’t tell you about these treadmill tests. Something that cannot be true if you are doing a V02 max test at a sports clinic. Something that would ONLY happen in a doctor’s office when they are doing the test for the purpose of ruling out a disease condition.
They made me run on a treadmill with no bra. NO BRA!
It was a first for me, running along with the twins bouncing like a pair of bobble heads in a car’s back window. Now I happen to be fairly flat chested so it wasn’t a huge deal but I looked at the tech and said, “How in the world does this work if you are a C cup?” The mind boggles – more than the boobs did.
They start the treadmill out kind of slow but on an incline. Every 3 minutes they up the speed and the pitch. By the 4th increase I wasn’t running as fast as I could but I was holding on to the bar for dear life lest I go tumbling backward ass over tea kettle. Not fun. She finally told me I was at 100% (of what I have no idea) and asked me if I’d had enough. I said if it was 100% for her it was good enough for me. My heartrate was at 170 and I know I can push it higher but I was ready to stop. I had to exit the treadmill and wobble over to the examining table and lie on my side as fast a possible so they could get another echo shot. I had visions of me twirling and pitching, knocking over aluminum trays and causing computers to crash to the ground but it didn’t happen – I made it.
Conclusion – I have no problems. None. I got back my blood work and my cholesterol is great in all the right places. I am one healthy specimen and for that I am quite grateful. It makes celebrating life through athletic competition seem a whole lot less insane and I feel safe now – completely safe. I’m also just rocking my bra – it never felt so good.
21st-century-mom.com 
that ain’t right. you can’t run with no boulder holder. that’s discrimination, I tells you.
here’s a short discussion on what they were testing.
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/vo2max.htm
and by short I mean try to stay awake…
No No – they weren’t testing that. I didn’t make my point so well. They were testing my ventricular health and wanted to see if it pumped blood evenly and steadily under stress. It does.
I am glad that it worked out ok for you 21stCM! For selfish reasons maybe. I want to be able to continue reading your great race reports.
You might be interested in this article. I found it to be quite interesting.
http://try3sports.blogspot.com/2007/11/sudden-death.html
did you get black eyes?
Glad to hear that everything checked out.
That no bra thing…..it smells a bit fishy to me. 🙂 Rock On!
Glad you’re tip-top with the tick-tock!
Hey, Katie Holmes just ran a marathon without a bra.
oh, i’d be OUT during this test. and i’d probably take a few of the technicians down with me!
but yay for health!
No way…no way in heck can I run without a bra. I’m a 36D and it would be far too painful.
Congratulations on passing all of the tests. I can’t believe that they have you do that without a bra. Did you have ECG leads on ? – imagine the artifact.
Yay! So glad you are healthy. 🙂
I cannot believe the no-bra policy! I guess I’d just wear a tight top? Is that allowed? Cause I would definitely not be going 100% while holding my boobies in place! 😀
WOOT! i’m glad you are good to go! not that i was worried, i saw you last weekend and you looked way healthy to me. but i guess i also don’t have x-ray vision as cool as that would be – wouldn’t it?
(just rambling, sorry…) 🙂
and for the record. no way could i have done that either sans bra. i think it would have been tooooo painful.
Me 2 – and they had some student Ultrasound tech watching…. i quit before i was tired just to regain some dignity.
lol
No way – I was doing my stress echo yesterday, too! Without a bra! And my saggy boobs were making a slapping noise every now and then. How embarrassing.
Am I oversharing???;-)
xoxoxo
So glad you are one healthy speciman. mwahhh!
Jenny