Timanfaya Dreaming

[IronGirl]

[quote="Mr. Cleetus"]How is your body hanging together trough it?

[IronGirl]

Sunday

Day 27 of the Spinervals Super 6 Challenge.......warmed up with a 30 min run around Brockhampton Estate with the dogs,then onto the turbo for Spinervals 7.0 "Uphill Grind!".

Monday

Easy day. Spinervals 23.0 "Recovery and Technique".

Tuesday (New Years Day)

Last day of the Spinervals Phase II Challenge, so a big special day today.
My very own New Years Day Half Ironman.
Spinervals 13.0 "Tough Love"
3 hour session with lots of tempo work straight into
1 hour 45 min cross country run. Hilly route which was even tougher than usual as it is so MUDDY!!!!!
Meant to keep the run fairly aerobic, but the nature of the beast meant you had to push hard to keep moving. Besides it was great fun powering through the mud with my mud claws!

So that's phase II of the Spinervals super 6 challenge complete.

Phase III starts tomorrow - apparently there is rest for the wicked, it starts with a rest day!!

[Mr. Cleetus]

Enjoy your rest day!

[IronGirl]

Wednesday
REST DAY.

Thursday
Spinervals 17.0 Aerobic base 90 min

Friday
2 hour hilly run with dogs in Radnor
Lovely relaxing day!

Saturday
2 hours Aerobic base
Spinervals 25.0

Sunday
40 min XC Run with dogs
with a fast lap of the Downs (23:52) 20 sec over pb but with all the mud it was good going!
Spinervals 23.0c Recovery and Technique

Monday
45 min XC with dogs - steady aerobic
90 min turbo, 16.0 Aerobic Base builder

[IronGirl]

Still trying to plan 2013 season.

British triathlon have still not announced the 3rd qualifier for the Short course worlds in London.
Everyone is starting to make other plans and races are filling up.
All we know is that it's on the 14th July.

Also on 14th July are the British Middle Distance champs (& I'm going to be better prepared to race that than an Olympic distance)
and also The Wales long course weekend (Basically IM Wales over 3 days ....... good chance to recce for 2014?)

The season so far looks like this:

March/April
Duathlons
Peopleton Duathlon (Worcester)
Newent Duathlon
Hereford Duathlon

May
Blaenavon Triathlon - An Olympic distance with a twist,
crazy steep hills on the bike and a fell run to finish......not done this one for years......should be a laugh!

June
Outlaw Half Ironman
Cotswold 113 Half Ironman

July

August
Penciled in Cotswold Classic Half Ironman
Penciled in Full Boar Half Ironman

[IronGirl]

Had some sort of bug thing last week, thought I was coming down with the dreaded Norovirus that is going around. Massive headaches and stomach cramps, but thankfully no sickness or anything. Took it easy for a few days and then started adding a few bits of training back slowly. Then back to it today properly.

Saturday

We have snow, LOTS of snow, had a great 50 min run with the dogs this morning.

Then 3 hour turbo session.
Spinervals 13.0 "Tough Love"

kept it aerobic and felt good to be back. Can start to push again next week.

Should have been doing "Not the Roman IX" tomorrow but it's been cancelled due to the weather. Guess I'll get out for a long run in the snow instead.

[IronGirl]

Sunday
More fun in the snow

2 hour 10 min run off road. 2 loops.
First loop with the dogs down the Gaines and back across Bringsty Common.
Then over the fields and around Brockhampton Estate.
Last 40 minutes or so by head torch which was rather lovely with the snow glistening and more snow falling all around (Aww I feel a song coming on!)
OK it was nice but it was darn TOUGH!!!

[IronGirl]

Monday
Good hard hill session on the turbo tonight!

With 3 x 8 min long hills (NOT!), 4 x 3 min simulated rolling hills and 4 x 40 sec sprints (30 sec seated and then 10 sec eye balls out, out of the saddle) .

A good solid blast after all the aerobic work on the weekend and first real push since the "bug"! It's funny how some short hard stuff can be quite invigorating sometimes.

[IronGirl]

Well it was all going a bit too well!!! I'VE BEEN TO HELL AND BACK!!!!!!!

I came back from one of those runs in January with a sore foot. Initially thought I'd knocked it on stones or a lump of ice, but it started to feel worse. Within a couple of days I couldn't put any weight on it. It hurt under the 2nd Metatarsal which set off alarm bells with me about stress fractures. I saw my GP and he send me off to have it X-rayed. The X-ray revealed no problems........

Meanwhile my left and right index finger had blown up like balloons. Something was wrong! A couple of days later I developed uveitis in my right eye. This bit I understood as I'd had it in my left eye 6 years ago. I now knew I had some sort of auto-immune problem. (The uveitis 6 years ago was why I initially became Vegan). However this was on a whole new scale. I was getting worse. My right knee blew up and I couldn't bend it at all and the other ankle joined in. After a bit of Googling I thought I had reactive arthritis and a trip to my GP confirmed my fears. I was now hobbling around on crutches and sleeping 12 hours a day because of the fever and fatigue that had developed. At it's worse I could not get out of bed. One day it took me an hour and a half to get to the bathroom. I think I only managed that as I have reasonable upper body strength from swimming. I couldn't get in the bath and I couldn't stand up in the shower. I could hardly dress myself, socks were particularly difficult. My husband became my full time carer. Treatment for now was unbelievably just ibuprofen and pain killers (pretty strong ones admittedly).

About a month later I finally got referred to a rheumatologist. I was prescribed a course of steroids and started on methotrexate. The methotrexate scared me to death, probably more than the disease. It's a vile cytotoxic drug and can have horrid side effects. Within a week of starting the steroids, things started to improve. I was awake during the day for one thing, although still in a lot of pain.

One obvious question that my family and friends have asked is WAS IT THE TRAINING? HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO YOURSELF? And yes I have asked the consultants that very question and the answer is NO It is an auto-immune disease. One possibility is that it was a reaction to the virus that I had back in January, I had just recovered from it when these problems started.

So there I was. My world had fallen apart. I couldn't walk never mind run.

I was told exercise would help. HaHa are they having a laugh I thought. So I took up gardening, our garden was in much need of attention anyway. I took it slowly, somedays I couldn't even stand it was so painful, but bit by bit I transformed our garden and brought it back to it's former glory. The process did help, it got me moving, it made me try. Each day I would try and stretch my boundaries a little more.

It took several months but eventually I could walk enough to take the dogs a short walk. It has taken 6 MONTHS to get going again. About 6 weeks ago I was walking the dogs, when Billy pulled on his lead and I was launched into half a dozen run steps. The expression on my face when I did it must have been classic. Billy was encouraged to "accidentally" pull again and we did a few more run steps. And so it went on. I decided it was time to have a go at swimming and cycling. I've built it up extremely slowly but I'm now at a point where I'm swimming 2km sessions, biking an hour and a half, doing turbo sessions and running for 30 minutes (not all at the same time just yet).

It's taken 6 months, 40 odd Doctor/Hospital appointments and a great deal of of determination. I had my latest hospital appointment on Monday and was told "The disease is inactive". It's the words I'd been hoping for. Simply over the moon. Despite the fact that it wasn't the training that caused it, we have been worried about how far I should push it in the future (short term and long term). I asked the following question on monday "Triathlon training/racing WILL invariably produce inflammation, is this a problem with this disease?". I was told it was not an issue at all. More great news. However I'm going to continue to tread carefully. I don't think I'll be doing an Ironman for some time. lol! Would honestly like to do a sprint before the year is over, I would feel like a winner no matter how long it took me. I just thank my lucky stars that I'm able to do things again. It could have gone the other way.

Sorry for the rant, I'm feeling quite tearful now, just needed to get that off my chest. But I'm Back now folks. Hello how is everyone? promise some training in my next post. lol!

[sergio]

I'm impressed by this story/experience. It must have been a really, really, really tough time. Glad you're fully recovered, all the best from now on!

[silver]

This explains why you've been a little quiet for a while!
Glad to hear you are on the upswing.
Being ill sucks
Look forward to reading how your recovery to full iron fitness progresses.

[hakko]

I can only agree with sergio. Thanks for sharing your story.

[kallefs]

Scary stuff! Good to hear that you are on the right track and back training again. Will be nice reading your log.

[Mr. Cleetus]

Wow, I don't even know what to say. Good luck in getting back to everything!

[IronGirl]

Warwickshire Sprint Triathlon Sunday 29th September (8 months after Diagnosis)

35th/250 women, 5th in my age category ,believe you me I'm not posting the times, I really don't care at the moment.

The main thing is I DID IT. I thought I would cry, but just seem to wander around in disbelief at the end.

It has been hard, very hard. I just remember getting on the turbo a few months ago, because moving reduced the pain. It's been one hell of a year, but the mind is a very strange thing and this just doesn't seem real any more.

Yesterday there were "no issues", I even managed to jog from the pool to T1 barefoot!! I'd planned on walking that bit, it was my only worry, but there was a big crowd out supporting which spurred me on. 1400 competitors in about 6 races (sprints, super-sprints and relays).

SWIM: A very odd pool swim. We had to do 4 lengths in each of 3 lanes. Mmm yes we moved lanes during the swim?? Never done that in 15 years of triathlon.

T1: as I say I managed to trot through which made my day......sounds trivial but it's actually HUGE. I have had problems with T1 for a couple of years, running barefoot that is, so I just wonder if there has been some low level inflammatory thing been going on for a while.

BIKE: On the whole a good, flat, scenic in parts bike course. However I'm amazed the Police allow this triathlon to take place. The first 2/3 mile and last 2/3 mile go through the centre of Stratford Upon Avon by the side of lines of traffic. Most were leaving a gap so cyclists could get through, but no way was I getting on aerobars and zooming through. It was like going through rush hour commuting traffic. The rest of the course was fun, we were being set off at 15 second intervals, so I had a great game of catch.

T2: Felt sluggish in T2, more so than I did on a practice run that I had 2 weeks ago. I put it down to being on my time trial bike, which hits my quads hard when I push the pace. Obvious solution is to do what I normally do and train on the thing.

Run: Moving OK but sluggish. Seemed to build into it as time went on. Grinning like a Cheshire cat on the last lap.
Nothing else matters today because I WON, I BEAT REACTIVE ARTHRITIS, I KICKED IT IN THE BUTT!!!

I'm still on the drugs, not sure for how long or whether it's permanent. I really hope not, they are nasty. I have monthly blood tests to check that they are not damaging me. Good news this month was that my Haemoglobin is up, which is good because this drug generally pushes it down. Yay for Kale I say. So I'm still being very careful, I'm allowing lots and lots of recovery due to the effects of the drug. The sessions are gradually getting longer and harder, so I think training for something next year will be possible. I'm just not sure what that something is yet. But it's a flipping good problem to have, boy o boy is it.