Dear Kayla,
In 2019, I was diagnosed with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. This means the blood vessels going from my heart to my lungs don’t expand enough to allow easy blood flow to happen and it makes my lung pressure get very high. It also makes normal activities very difficult. I am on oxygen and two experimental drugs which have helped some, but what has really helped the most so far is walking. My lung pressure numbers were maintained and came down slightly from 2019-2023, but over the last 6 months, they really started lowering and I believe it’s the walking.
I heard you talk about walking in your house, and I don’t know why that never dawned on me before! It was like a lightbulb went on! Crazy, I honestly never thought of that! I hadn’t been walking very far because I was dragging an oxygen tank outside. Now, no excuses. I just have a very long cord I use around my house. I do laps inside. I usually do 3-5 miles per day. My lung pressure numbers just keep coming down.
We have a pool and I can drag my cord out there too, ha ha! So my question for you is, when I’m walking in the pool, how do you calculate the mileage? My iWatch doesn’t really pick it up. My pool is 25 feet long and 20 steps one way for me. Do I count the steps, or do I count the actual yardage? I know this sounds crazy, but I’m the kind of person who likes to check things off and make things accurate. If there are 40 steps in a lap, that’s about 57 laps per mile, which is about 2250 steps for me. But if I’m doing yardage, it’s 50 feet per lap, which would mean 105 laps in in a mile. That’s a big difference! What is the best way to calculate?
Signed,
Babushka
Dear Babushka,
Thank you for your letter! If no one has told you how inspiring your story is, let me be the first to do so! Your letter is timely, because I plan to start a pool routine of some sort soon, and I’ve been pondering how to best convert pool activity to steps.
I think in your particular case, I’d track steps instead of yardage. Walking in pool at a moderate pace burns twice as many calories as walking at a moderate pace on land, and since it would take twice as many laps if we were using yardage, I think the fairest and most accurate conversion would be to use pool steps.
If I were in your shoes, I’d start slowly baby-stepping my way to that 3 miles in the pool, 3 miles on land goal in this way:
I’d walk on land for 3 miles, and then do as many laps as I could manage in the pool. I’d try to keep at the same perceived level of effort, adding laps as I felt ready, with the ultimate goal being 3 miles walked on land, and 171 laps walked in the pool. I’m not sure how long it will take you to get to this goal, but I’ll be cheering you on from afar. Of course, keep an eye on your health markers and double check all this advice against what your physician advises. I hope you’ll let me know how it goes for you.
Best wishes on your journey, Babushka!
Sincerely,
Kayla Cox