Running Updates.... and such

Not a lot to update! I just realized it had been a long long long time since I wrote about any adventures.

This summer started with a bummer when I completed 1/2 of the Squaw Peak 50 snow course, and then had to drop because I was having IT band issues. The snow course was much more difficult than the real course, and I am praying it is many more years before we have that much snow in June again! I decided after that run I will take Bozung Hill about 5 times before Pole Haven Hell, Rock Canyon, and the Shoreline Trail in the heat! Never-the-less, it was all the expected hell an ultrarunner can dream and more!

I was thrilled to hear that Grant Holdaway finished his 10th year at Squaw Peak, at the age of 80, and then felt like a wimp for dropping! But it was good that I did, because a few weeks later it turned into a stress point, and then I had to take 6 weeks completely off of running all together. This means I donated my race fees for Speed Goat, Deseret News Marathon, and sadly didn't even get to start the beast of Katcina Mosa! That was the saddest one for me. Katcina has beat me 2 years in a row, and I was going to conquer Katcina or die this year! Instead I listened to the advice of my doctor and gulp.... stopped running for a few weeks! I volunteered at the coral at aid station 9 (mile 56) and watched several beat up of my running friends come through!

I decided part of the cause of the stress fracture was the pair of $170 Hoka Maffetes that I purchased in May. I have been buying running shoes since 1997 and I have always needed a size 10 in a running shoe. The problem with the Hoka's is for whatever reason, despite the most common shoe size for a womens' running shoe being a 10, they only go up to a 9.5 in women's. The additional problem with the shoe is that the toe box is much smaller than other running shoes, and so a proper size for my foot would be a 10.5.

That mistake cost me 3.5 races, and having to avoid almost any impact on my foot for weeks. I sold the shoes to someone who has a smaller foot, and will go back to my tried and true trail shoes that I know work for my foot!

I started short distances this week, and so far my foot is holding up. I have been working a lot on my upper body strength with Tandi, and feel like I can start introducing Mauy Thai and running back into my life, wahoo!!!

In addition to my injury, I have been migrating Southward.

I opened a new office in Spanish Fork in May. I am building a house in Springville, and trying to rent out my Lindon home and rent a house in Springville in the meantime while our home is being built!

My kids have started school at Springville schools, and I am scoping out some of my old running routes from my hometown of Mapleton! Thinking I might use that Pole Haven Hell road for hill training, because if I can take that a few times, Windy Pass will be a breeze next year! LOL

Graduate school is over, I am anxious to get back to being an ultrarunnerboxer maniac!

Happy Trails! Hopefully my updates and races will start becoming more frequent again!

Snow Shoe Festival 50K and update

It has been a very busy year, so I haven't been updating much.

But I am doing much better. Through lots of sleep, time management, and Nutritional Support I completed 45 miles of the 100K on Antelope Island in November. My first test run and I had no hydration issues.

I climbed Kilimanjaro in January.

I completed the Katoohla Winter Snow Shoe 50K and was the only woman who finished. So despite my slow time due to not having much time to train this year, I got a first place trophy, and came in last! It was awesome!

I have been spending more time on conditioning, and will pick up more on boxing and my miles once I graduate in about 8 weeks. But my body is working better, and my POTS symptoms have not been bothering me. They are almost not noticeable.

Lots of emotional support, nutritional help from Elena, and rest, and supplements to help my adrenal glands have seemed to help. I am now needing a close to normal amount of salt that you would expect, and not the super high amounts.

This has been encouraging news!

Killimanjaro

Update on Running and Life

I just realized I never wrote a Wasatch report. Because I had to DNF at Francis Peak, and determine my body is still healing.

However, after taking quite a bit of a break, and doing some "easy" workouts, I am feeling better, my energy is returning, and I am not having the same hydration issues I was having with POTS.

I am starting to think my main problem can be attributed to my adrenal glands having been very stressed out from my first year of grad school having very little sleep, maintaining a full race/boxing schedule, practicum, classes, etc. Basically burning the candle on 5 different ends.

I have had to be very careful in getting a lot of sleep since my body just seemed to stop working for a couple of weeks in July, and my energy has been very low ever since then.

I was sleeping for 10-12 hours on most nights for a couple of months, and still feeling tired. But now, I am finally starting to feel a bit more normal, although I have to be careful and make sure I get no less than 7 hours of sleep a night, so I am in bed by 9-10 pm nearly every night.

But I have started picking up my training again, not back up to quite normal for me, but it is getting up there and running is starting to feel like something I remember that I like doing again, I am training 2 x per week with Tandi, the boxing queen, and she is pushing me a lot, and has recommended some supplements to me that are making a huge difference, and I am not needing abnormal amounts of sodium and potassium to stay alive! This is good news! This means my body is tolerating activity more normally, I am not requiring super high amounts of hydration anymore, this is also good news, and I believe having my adrenal glands starting to work more normally, is controlling some of the POTS symptoms, and even eliminating the need for higher amounts of salt than normal, or at least reducing the crazy amounts that I was having to take.

I pretty much have had to take a position for the moment of doing only what is necessary for my school, practicum, research assistant job, and then doing some physical activity as my body will allow and I have time for, and increasing the amount and intensity at a rate that will not stress my adrenal glands. But right now, sleep is still more of a priority than physical activity in the order of what my body needs, so if there is a choice, sleep is still winning out in importance.

That is starting to shift and balance out. To my friends I have not seen in a while, I am still here, but I am being pretty low-key in life as my body heals. I am happy to say, I am seeing a beginning of a return to my normal self, and ultimately I think my performance is going to be much better than it was before all this stuff occurred, because it has been affecting my abilities to perform, and my speed during endurance events had been losing ground even though my abilities in shorter runs had been improving, and my intensity increasing, but that all was affected as well, when my body seemed to shut down in July.

I skipped out on the Ogden Valley 50 mile run last week, and that was a difficult decision. I had been planning on running it even up through about 8 pm the night before, but I changed my mind after I realized how far behind I was in completing some school work, some stuff for my job, and just that I had been so busy all week, that I was not even ready in having my drop bags and would have been leaving my house after hurrying to pack, and driving the 1:45 hours to Mountain Green, and then running on little sleep, and expecting myself to then make up for the time I spent running by losing more rest on Sunday to catch up with my life.

So instead, being very tired at that point, I decided to go to bed, forget about the 4th year of the streak I was on with that race, and it having been my very first ultra 3 years ago, that was a bit emotional to give up, however, I decided I need to instead focus on healing, and doing what is best for my physical and mental health, and in being able to graduate with my Master's Degree in May and still be alive when I am done.

So instead I realized, that for this year, if I am planning on actually being able to run any races, and survive the demands of my extra clinical hours I have to put in for my practicum, get my course work done, attend to my family's needs as much as I am able to so that my children don't feel abandoned, I have to make an effort to zone in on actually prioritizing and planning so that I can get the work done before hand, without losing sleep, so that if I run a long race, and lose a whole weekend in racing, and sleeping after a race to allow my body to recover properly, and not stress out about having to then catch up on the other obligations I have to get my work done for school, and risk losing ground with my health that is now returning. I need to protect the healing space that I have found.

This has been a mental shift for me, to allow myself to be OK with deciding, even last minute, if a race is going to jeopardize my health and my ability to complete the other demands I have for this year. I used to feel like a failure if I had to DNF, or if I had to decide to not start a race I had committed to run. But I have come to the conclusion, that the only person who really cares if I finish a race, or start a race is myself, and I am holding a measure of importance on something that in the long run, is expendable and will not negatively affect myself or others in how successful I am with life.

On the other hand, if I do not complete my coursework, or meet my obligations to my family, or RA job, or I sacrifice sleep because I am trying to do everything, including a race that I can skip for now, and run next year, than those consequences are actually of significance, and my priorities are not in the right place if that is so.

So, now, I have compromised. I was very sad to miss the OV 50 last week, but it was horrible weather in the end anyway, and I can start over with a streak of 1 next year, and that is that. But not running that race, has allowed me space to get enough things in order, to plan for being completely free to run the new Antelope Island 100K on November 6th, and have any work that I need to have done complete before Friday night, so that when I run Saturday, I can come home, and sleep as much as I need to on Sunday, and wake up ready to do the work I need to on Monday, without scrambling to play the catch up game, and being over tired, and putting myself in a risk for getting sick or moody as a result.

So next up is the 100K, and I mentally preparing and trying to get enough of life in order to not lose sleep over it, plus have my race stuff ready a couple of days before, so I can just drive to the start line and have fun!

I am also working closely with Elena on having a mostly wholefood diet, which is helping my GI problems go way by eliminating anything with Corn Syrup, or refined carbohydrates.... since that seems to be part of my absorption issues.... and that is making a difference big time!

I am taking a new supplement from Nu Skin/Pharmanex, called Vitality, that is making the biggest difference in my energy, endurance, and recovery that I have ever seen with any product! Tandi got me on it, and I was skeptical, but it is making a huge huge difference! I am not needing more than a normal nights sleep, I am tolerating physical activity more normally now, and things are getting much better. I am also on an adrenal supplement with adrenal tissue and b-vitamins, some digestive enzymes, and probiotics.

These have all eliminated my need to have higher amounts of sodium, and my weight is starting to slowly return to normal as well, as at the adrenal problems caused my weight to jump by about 15 lbs, and had caused a 10 lb weight gain during the whole year before, so now I am trying to slowly get my body to drop those 25 lbs, which is a slow process to figure out with dietary adjustments, and just getting my body systems working normally, and getting rid of the fluid retention that has been problematic with all my fluctuating hydration needs.

So, it is quite an interesting process, and things are looking like they are finally staying in a positive upward direction, and leveling out slowly.

I will update on what happens with the Antelope Island 100K next week, and see how my body responds to my first real attempt at a race, with a more positive chance at being successful since my Katcina Mosa DNF.

Call for Pacers

I really want to finish Wasatch next week. I have had some interesting setbacks this year with figuring out my strange body issues. I am figuring them out, but it is still a bit of a guessing game. I would welcome anyone who is interested helping me complete my goal of finishing Wasatch for the moral support. My body is on the mend, and I can run as long as I don't get dehydrated, and can keep my blood sugar stable, but I am still building my confidence back up after this year. It has been a hard year for races, and the DNF's are the ones I have learned the most useful in formation about what to do and not do to in order to be able to keep running and finishing.

So this is just a call out, for anyone that would be interested in helping me stay motivated and hopefully finish this one. I really want to finish, and having the issues on Katcina Mosa really was devastating for me, because I was well prepared, I just didn't know that I am sensitive to fructose, and when I am running that is what was interfering with my blood sugar. I did a long run on Timp, no fructose, and no blood sugar issues!

So anyway, this is I guess an emotional request to help keep me on speed. I want to finish Wasatch more than anything right now. There are a lot of things going that would make this a meaningful finish for me.

POTS Test update

 I heard back from Dr. Joy today, my POTS test came back positive, which means I for sure have POTS. The way they test for it is by having you lie down for 30 minutes and drawing your blood, and then having you stand up for 30 minutes and drawing your blood while standing. Drawing my blood while standing nearly made me pass out, which is a POTS response, not a fear of needles but an androgenic response. What happens, and what they test for is a change in norepinephrine levels when drawing the blood in the supine position vs. standing. If you have POTS your levels will be higher while standing due to an androgenic response. If you test positive then you for sure have POTS, if you test negative, then you can still have POTS. I tested positive, and my standing noepinephrine levels are over 2 x the reference levels, which is very high.

What this means for treatment, I have no idea. Dr. Joy says I am a strange case because I have basically learned to self-manage most of my symptoms and prevent them from worsening intuitively. All of the lifestyle things they would have me do I am already doing, and have been naturally drawn to because I have figured out how to make things better. She doesn't want to put me on a beta-blocker because I am a runner and she says I would hate it. She is consulting with other Dr.'s to see what my treatment options are, but in the mean time my symptoms are generally much improved with the sodium and potassium increases, and I will be working with Elena to figure out if there are ways to improve the blood sugar fluctuation issues during endurance events.

Overall, I feel positive that we are going to figure this thing out and that my running and ability to finish races will improve as we figure out what works and what does not.

Not diabetic!

This is good news! The blood sugar issues I have been having are part of POTS. When I have a stress response I release high amounts of epinephrine which causes an insulin response. This is why during some endurance events, I have blood sugar issues.

So now I will be working with Elena on figuring out a nutrition plan to help minimize this effect, and hopefully be successful at Wasatch next month.

Part of what seems to probably help is getting a lot of sleep before a race, and reducing stress as much as possible. I guess I will be adding on more meditative moments to my life. This will be interesting to try and do this during my second year of grad school!