Blood Runs Cold

On Friday morning I woke up early. That's not unusual, I do that most mornings. But for some reason I reached out and grabbed my Oximeter from my bedside locker. No idea why, it must have been there for close to a year since I last used it, even though I still kept it within arm's reach. It gives two readings, the oxygen saturation of your blood and the heart rate. It had always been the heart rate that I had been interested in, I used to use it to measure my resting HR. But this time it was actually the oximeter reading that caught my eye. It had always been around 95, except for one time when I had some viral infection and it turned lower. And lower it was again that morning, at 88.

Now, I am perfectly aware of two things. One, it's a cheap 10 Euro oximeter and definitely not medical grade, so the reading might have been unreliable. And two, I googled the possible reasons for low oxygen saturation, and using Dr. Google for self diagnosis is always a bit of a gamble, but the one reason that caught my eye straight away was anemia.

Runners talk about anemia quite often, it is one reason why you might be running below your potential. And running can cause anemia due to foot strike hemolysis, though that is quite rare. I do have a history of anemia, however, I used to be on iron tablets for years when I was young and I have long lost count of the number of times our GP took a blood sample to test me. That was a long time ago, however, so it may well be just a false alarm, especially with the uncertainty of the diagnosis. 

Still, I went into the pharmacy on Saturday and bought some liquid iron supplement, the one that Niamh used to take when she was pregnant with the twins and which seemed to help me as well.

Actually, I have been feeling much better this week, though I can only assume that this is either coincidence or placebo because even if I really were anemic, I don't think the supplement would work quite so quickly. I'll keep taking it, though. I'm pretty sure my iron levels are not high, so taking a supplement is unlikely to cause any harm, in the worst case it may have caused slight harm to my bank balance, that's all.

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I followed the same pattern as recent weeks in training, with a long cycle on Tuesday evening and a mountain run on Sunday, though I didn't manage to run on Friday because work had been absolutely manic, I didn't manage to nip out at lunchtime and was too exhausted to even think of running after work, so I let it go.

I only managed about 50 miles of running last week, which isn't a lot when you're training for a race of the same length, though it was offset by over 100 miles of cycling, and part of the run was on mountain trails, which significantly increased the time on feet compared to what the same miles would have given me on the road.

Still, I won't be in top shape come race day. But I'll manage.

Discrimination

Just imagine. Just imagine you have trained for years, paid the price in blood, sweat and tears. You get better and better because you keep pushing yourself past your limits again and again and eventually, after years of hard work that most people cannot even imagine, you reach the required standard for selection into your country's team for the World Championships.

No, don't fear, I'm not talking about myself.

To make things even more difficult, as if trying to achieve international standard by itself wouldn't be difficult enough, just imagine you are legally blind and cannot train like you or me can, as described vividly in this post. And despite those obvious disadvantages you manage to overcome all obstacles and manage to qualify.

And the you don't get selected, for no other reason that you are blind:

I havent been selected by Athletics Ireland to represent Ireland in the world champs soley based on my disability. Thanks @RichardDonovan7 for all your support. The IAU and IAAF rules are not justifiable. https://t.co/JBOVHOhD2y

— Dr. Sinead Kane (@KaneSinead) August 18, 2019

I'm outraged! That is just so fucking unfair, I cannot even put it into words. Plus, I was under the impression that there are laws against discrimination?

Compared to that, my own little training adventures pale into insignificance.

I felt better than last week, despite doing the exact same cycle route again on Tuesday. Maybe my legs are more getting used to it, who knows. I still felt tired on Thursday but much better on all the other days, and the odd tired day is allowed after all.

On Sunday I was feeling adventurous enough to head out into the Wilderness. I tried to get a feel for the land for that ultra in September, and while I still don't know the actual route I stitched together a route using an app call Komoot, which helped to plan things in advance and also was an invaluable navigation tool during the run itself. The software itself is excellent, absolute top marks, and if you are looking for a tool for planning your cycling, running or hiking routes, this is the only one you need to look at. Trust me. What wasn't quite so good was the quality of the map, and I learned reasonably quickly that just because there is a trail marked on a map that does not mean there is an actual trail on the mountain. After twice getting stuck in a jungle of fern, brambles and gorse I had learned my lesson and started to stick to visible paths instead of blindly following a voice from the mobile. I'm not blaming Kamoot for the lousy map data, btw., the same non-existing trails are in the Strava maps as well.

Anyway, I tagged off Great Sugarloaf (which I had been planning on doing for over a year anyway) and Little Sugarloaf as well on the way back home, though it was mainly hiking and precious little running (as well as scrambling on all fours on some worryingly steep bits), and moving up a steep loose scree slope is bloody hard work, so it definitely was a damn good workout despite the lack of running, and I was out for well over 3 hours - and absolutely knackered afterwards! But it was the good kind of knackered, or "pleasantly tired" as Lydiard would have called it, and I have a good set of memories. I'll head into the mountains again in the following weeks. I clearly need the training!

There's Always Hope

I think the less I train the less I am motivated to update the blog, or maybe those things just happen to coincide. I'm not sure.

Last week was another one with low mileage, at least by my own standards, about 45 miles. I had felt totally dead on my feet on Wednesday and Thursday, so I decided to basically bin the long run on Sunday. I still went out, mostly to test out all my shiny new gear I got for next month's ultra (i.e. a rain jacket and a race vest) but it was for not even 10 miles. I also switched into ultra effort, walking all, well, most of the uphills and taking it easy on the rest as well. I even stopped a couple of times and took a few photos, mostly to switch my brain into non-competitive mode.

My long day is actually Tuesday, and the reason for that is that this is the day where we do a long cycle after work. We'll be doing a 3 day charity ride for Laura Lynn at the beginning of September, in Kerry, and I just could not say no to it. I am finding the cycling surprisingly easy and also surprisingly enjoyable, though maybe it helps that the pace is always rather gentle and not exactly strenuous - my average HR for those rides is barely above 100. However, 3 hours in the saddle after work, added to cycling into work in the morning and doing a 5-mile lunchtime run, adds up to more than 4 hours of exercise in a single day and I sure could feel it into the legs for the next 2 days, hence the easing off.

How much that cycling is helping my fitness towards the ultra I have no idea. I do get the long bouts of exercise but they say it's about "time on feet", and obviously when cycling I'm sitting down, so not exactly on my feet. Then again, Eoin Keith used to do a ton of cycling for his training and he wasn't exactly a bad ultra runner at the time, so it definitely does help (admittedly, he got even better when he started doing more running instead).

The plan for the next few weeks is to do a few long runs on the race route, combining training with a recce, though that is made a bit more complicated by the fact that they still have not confirmed the race route, though I have a reasonably good idea (Bray Head, Little Sugarloaf, Great Sugarloaf, Djouce, and then do it all again on the way back).

On Monday I went out at lunchtime with a work colleague who is training for a sub-3 in Dublin. He did an easy run, which for me was steady pace. I was really surprised afterwards to see that I had done basically the fastest run in this training cycle. I obviously knew I was running faster than normal but we were chatting away the whole time and it didn't feel fast. Funny how that works. Also, I had actually been planning to slow down in my training as the ultra approaches, so if that was a good thing or not is an open question. Mind, 5 miles when you're still managing to chat all the way through doesn't sound like I was overworking myself.

It started raining this week. Maybe that's a good thing. It was really humid all summer, I was always soaked right through after a couple miles of running, which may well have been a major contributing factor to me feeling tired so quickly. I'll see, maybe things will improve. Let's hope so.

Overtraining Syndrome - OTS

I came across this article about overtraining syndrome the other day. While it's not exactly the first time I've been reading about it, it did get me thinking, not least because I have been hearing about it for several years and yet there still seems to be a complete lack of understanding about it, and the less said about the competency of the general medical profession regarding this subject the better.

I know I had been overtraining badly in 2016, but quite possibly also before and since. The "problem" has been that I did not have most of the symptoms described, apart from that significant drop in performance (in 2016 I had the constant fatigue, alright), which ended up with me being in denial for far too long.

My problem was that I lacked the physical performance attributes of most of my peers at the international level but made up much of it in psychological terms, being able to push myself harder than most (not the absolute top guys, obviously). That worked for a couple of years but eventually caught up with me, especially as I kept turning the dial further and further until I reached the point where I was at 11 out of 10 and there was nothing else to give.

Ever since then there has been a decline, steady at first and precipitously the last 2 years or so, and I seem to have reached the point where I can't even run half as much as I used to. I also do wonder if I'm about to fall out of love with running. There are days when I do wonder why I still bother lacing up the shoes. I can't help comparing myself to my only slightly younger self, and we're talking completely different levels of performance here. I actually used to look forward to the time when I would have been retired from competitive running and just go out running for pure joy - unfortunately it doesn't seem to work like that for me. It doesn't help that my legs seem to be completely toast after 90 minutes, no matter what, even if I take it easy the day before, even if I take it easy from the start.

I didn't mean to be whining all throughout the blog post, sorry about that. A part of me keeps thinking that half a year away from running might do me some good, the rest of me keeps shuddering in horror at the mere thought of it.

Cycling seems to be going ok, at least I'm able to keep that up for a few hours without the legs turning into jelly and the energy levels plummeting towards zero. On the other hand I have no real desire ever to enter a cycling race, it just doesn't appeal to me, and to keep cycling on my own for 4, 5, 6 or even more hours on a long ride doesn't sound all that appealing either.

Oh I don't know, I'll figure something out. I  have a race entry for that 50 mile ultra in September, which sounds more and more like a really bad idea but I will be doing it anyway because I'm an idiot, and being an idiot has worked surprisingly well, in general. I will test the theory that running an ultra just for fun is easier than racing a marathon, which never managed to convince me to be honest, but I guess I'll find out.