Trouble breathing (Read 869 times)

Has anyone ever had the problem where they found it really, really hard to take a deep breath while running? I was towards the end of a long run (15 M) and I could not seem to catch my breath. I know that sounds like a normal thing, but I could not take a deep breath and fill my lungs. It felt like I had a tight belt around my chest (not painful) but constricting and I was taking several small breaths breathing really heavy. Scared me, I did slow down (not like I was really going fast in the first place) and it did go away. Just never happened to me before.

I peeked at your log and saw that you rated this run a 10/10 for effort but only a 2/10 for quality. Seeing that you didn't put any notes about your run in there it sounds like you were running too fast. A long run should not have an effort of 10/10 and a quality so low as a 2/10. Something is wayyyyy out of balance here. Another clue was that you said you coudln't get a deep breath. Next time you go out for a long run, leave the watch at home, run by feel. If you start huffing and puffing for breath, you're running too fast for a long run. During a long run you should be able to speak comfortably and your breathing should be deeper than normal but not labored or with the feeling that you can't get a good breath in. Your pacing should feel like you could run that forever. You may have a bad long run every once in a while but you should always feel like you get something out of them. When I see ratings of 1, 2, or 3, that tells me you got little to nothing out of it because you effort was off the charts at a race pace (10/10). Terie

Like Zoom, when you described it as a narrowing of the airway my ears perked up. It's one thing to breathe hard--like when you're running a tempo run or a 5k and you're just breathing hard cause man, this is a tough pace--and another to have a difficult time breathing b/c of an asthma attack or--what I've had--an allergic reaction. This is what I thought of when you described the constricting. I was diagnosed with allergy-induced asthma when I went to the dr over a stubborn cough. The dumb thing is that the cough was somewhat productive. I'd been on antibiotics about three months before for an upper-respiratory infection, so I figured that's what it was from, but the doctor could hear the wheezing. He put me on Advair for thirty days and the coughing stopped. Went off the Advair, coughing returned. I couldn't believe I was asthmatic b/c I never struggle to breathe when I run, but there you go. I mention this b/c you may have some symptoms you may think aren't related at all that may turn out to be significant. You might want to get a doctor to look at your lungs, or at the very least start tracking how your breathing is and whether pollen counts and humidity and other environmental factors affect your breathing.

Yup... I get what you are describing when I'm having an asthma attack. It can almost feel like the belt you describe is tightening because you can't empty the lung completely. I think you should go and get your flow tested, it might be exercise induced if it only happens when you exercise. Or could be cold induced if it is winter where you live.

Yep, coughing is a major symptom of asthma. I think that wheezing stereotype has led a lot of folks to believe that asthmatics breathe loudly and gasp for breath all the time, but that's not the case. Before starting on Advair I would wake nearly every night for almost a month coughing a dry cough and feeling short-of-breath. I would use my albuterol inhaler and within minutes felt better and was able to fall back to sleep and not wake coughing, again. I have never really "wheezed," though. This past Spring is when my asthma got really bad. I finally knew I needed more than my inhaler when I was using it 2-3x/day, every day. And I ran a 25k race that was one big, long asthma attack. I trained so hard for that race and felt as if my lungs were holding me back the entire way. So frustrating, especially when fellow running friends who always finish a few minutes behind me were several minutes ahead of me. I KNEW I could have done so much better with fully functioning lungs. k