It didn’t help my attitude when the guy next to me at the half marathon mark said something like, “Great that’s just what I need, a half marathon PR during a 25K.” Then he mumbled something about the top-100 times at the half were being recorded and that “I’ll just beat you by a step or two.” Subconsciously, I probably slowed down because of him. He pulled away, but luckily he stopped at the next water stop and I caught back up in time to hear him say, “You know you’re thirsty when water tastes like [fill in some fancy French-sounding word here].” I guess now I have more incentive to get back to “normal”.
As for my iron, here’s where I’m at. I made an appointment with my doctor for a physical where I’ll get my ferritin checked. Unfortunately, I can’t get in until 9/25. So my dilemma is do I take the iron supplements (something you’re not supposed to do unless you know you have a deficiency) for the next 2 weeks in an attempt to start feeling better? Or do I wait 2 weeks so that I’m not skewing the results? I’d rather not skew the results because I want to have a baseline for future reference. Plus I’d like to know if low iron is truly the cause of the way I’ve been feeling. I’m trying to see if I can have a nurse work up my blood before 9/25 but I haven’t heard back yet.
Right now, I’m back to leaning towards not running TCM. Had I comfortably held 7:00 pace for 25K I might have a different response. However, that last 5K felt like the last 10K of a marathon, so I can’t imagine how things would feel at TCM, but I know they wouldn’t be enjoyable – no matter what pace I was running.
It looks like some of the Team USA Minnesota and Team Running USA runners have updated their journals recently. Maybe my hounding paid off.
Quote of the day;
“I have a bitter taste in my mouth after a disappointing summer of racing.” - Katie McGregor
2 comments:
Crikey - you really must be at a low ebb now. Looking at your recent headlines: "Cranky", "General Disdain", "Absolute Drag" ... and then 7:00 pace feels hard. That's definitely not normal, but you knew that already.
As for iron supplements, I take a liquid supplement called Floravital. My wife usually takes it during pregnancy and it seems to help her. My energy levels felt low a month or two ago, so I started taking it too, and I have definitely improved since then. Of course I don't know if it's due to the supplement or not.
If I were you, I wouldn't take anything until the test for the reason you have mentioned. I wouldn't want to screw up the results.
I can think of another way to get a quick iron count but it comes with a catch. Go and give blood. They'll test your blood before hand to see if your iron is high enough to donate. If your iron is low, they wont take your blood. If your iron isn't low then they'll take a donation but that will leave you low on red blood cells (and iron) for about 2 weeks. I like to try to do it a week or two after the marathon.
Post a Comment