I want to run!

Well, here it is 22 days later and I was not very good at keeping this blog going.  I again have no excuses other than being lazy and letting other things distract me when I know that I needed to spend time to sit down and let Christi know what is up in my end of the country.  I am sure other than my Dad and Christi, no one else reads this blog anymore and I am partly to blame for that.  I just have not been really interesting lately.  I have no contests and give-aways.  I don't do any product reviews.  I have not been racing.  And right now, I'm not even training.

WHAT??!!??

Yes, I am grounded from training.  How did that happen???  Well, the quick version is that I am human and I am not a professional at this whole sports thing.  Being that I am not a professional that means that even though I have training of my own to get done, I also have a job that requires me to exercise more, I have to be swim team/cross country/band mom, somewhere in there I have to try to do some housework or at least not let my husband think we live in a bear den, and then try to get enough rest and recovery.  I have been good at getting a little of everything done but bad at not getting much of anything done.

I was feeling like I had been cheating doing my running indoors on a treadmill but my mileage was over 10 miles and with morning temperatures over 85 degrees, I was just not able to carry enough water with me and I had been having problems maintaining the pace that I needed to be running at.  The treadmill let me be close to a bathroom, close to more water, and to stay on pace or be spit off the back of the treadmill.  I set the incline to 2% and got the speed up, but I am sure that I was still cheating.  However, I have mastered running 14 miles on a treadmill.  

I did try to run outside, but with all of the smoke from the Texas wildfires, it was making my lungs hurt and my esophagus feel like it was lined with broken glass, and since I have asthma, it was back to the treadmill.  Again, I felt like I was cheating and not really putting in the effort that I needed to.  On the second week of the month, I failed to recognize that it was the start of the next four-week cycle and I was on remote control and did the old workouts rather than the new ones.  That was a forehead slap there.  I was too busy with getting other things done to pay attention to my training.  Bad.  I had great TRX and Kettlebell workouts, but it is the running workouts that really matter.

My long runs were getting done, but I was secretly dreading them.  I dreaded them because there was some chick who always seemed to be on the treadmill that I wanted to run on.  I had the Goldilocks Syndrome going on.  That one is too close to the weight floor.  That one is not balanced and wobbles above 4.7 speed.  That one is too close to the mirrors.  I was also dreading the long run because somewhere between 9 and 10 miles, the pain set in.  The pain was different every time and it moved all around.  One time it would be burning in my calves, next it would be pain in the right oblique or in my left lower abdomen.  Sometimes it was in the left shoulder and then the next week it was in the right shoulder.  This pain would make the last three to four miles really rough.  I had to grit my teeth and just get through it.  ARGH!!!

Dr. H was great about getting me unwound and unbound but the pain would just return in a different place on the next long run.  Dr. H said that my adrenal glands were probably fired up from the car accident and recommended that I try to see Dr. Krupka.  I had heard of the amazing Dr. Krupka before from my Sports Stretch therapist, Kimberly.  Dr. Krupka was highly recommended so I was willing to wait a full week to get in to see him.  I kept going with my workouts and waited.

Last week when I got to see Dr. Krupka, he explained to me that along with chiropractic work, he practices Functional Medicine.  Functional Medicine is to look at root of the problem and not to just treat the symptoms.  After a little question and answer time and some muscle testing, Dr. Krupka confirmed that my adrenal glands, my ovaries, and my pituitary gland were all in a cage fight with each other and that we needed to figure out what was causing this.  Dr. Krupka suspects that I might have a gluten intolerance that I have also suspected in the past.  I was told to do a saliva collection and send off to a lab to look for certain markers for adrenal fatigue and gluten intolerance.  I was also told to try to avoid gluten for a week and to see what would happen.  So my spit sample is in a lab and I am waiting for the results.

I saw Dr. H the next day and he tuned me up and told me that I needed to take one week off from exercise just to be pro-active.  WHAT?!?  I called Coach Woofie and reported to him what Dr. K and Dr. H had to say and he agreed that I needed to take one week off from workouts and if I could, one week off from work since work involves me exercising.  WHAT??!!??  Ok, how about I take the time off in another week when I have a good excuse to goof off (more on that in a bit).  The members at the gym would never understand that I had to take a week off.  Well, yes they would, but they would not be happy about it.  WAIT, is this what they were all talking about?  I had stressors in my life that were causing the glandular and hormonal smack-down and I just had to walk away for a while and let everyone else get their knickers in a twist for a week.

The next day I had my long run and I told myself that I was just going to run 7 or 8 miles.  During my cycling class that I teach at 5:30 am, I felt a muscle twinge in the inside of my right leg that Dr. H had told me to be aware of that was a signal that the adrenal glands were crying "Uncle".  I got on the treadmill after class and within 3 minutes I hit the STOP button and bailed on the workout.  I felt like a looser.  I took it easy the rest of the day.  Friday was a little easier, but I had stuff I had to get done, so skipping the workout actually gave me more time.  Saturday was h.a.r.d.  I was coaching my TNT tri TEAM and they were doing a run.  I did the water stops but it hurt watching everyone else running and it was sad to watch the shirtless runner boys run off into the distance and I could not run after them.  I just had to climb in the Element and go home.  

On Sunday, I realized that some of the a few of the symptoms from the adrenals were going away such as the crazy irregular heart beat when I would go to bed, and the eyelid twitch.  I guess the extra sleep was helping, but I was still waking up after 8 hours feeling like I needed more sleep.  Some things were worse.  The hives on my arms, shoulders, and chest were out of control and on Saturday night I woke myself up five times scratching my arms.  I was scratching my arms in my sleep!  Dr. K said that the hives might get worse as my body was trying to clear out the toxins from the gluten and that because I was not working out and sweating, the hives were going to get worse.  

On Monday, I was in a funk.  I felt tired, ugly, and sad.  I felt like a disappointment to others for not getting my sh*t together and getting done what needed to be done.  I forgot to get someone signed up for a swim meet, I didn't check back on a confirmation to send the kid to a swim clinic, I accidentally ate a slice of bread.  I felt like I just needed to crawl in a hole and disappear.  But I could not do that, I had too much that I had to get done!  I had to go to work and teach classes, bake bread for lunch, finish laundry so the kid had clean running clothes, pick him up from tutorials, drive him to swim practice, get after him to work on his English project due later this week, and have him practice his trumpet.   I wanted to pull my hair out and then Greyhound threw me a bone and put me in contact with a spectacular trumpet instructor who gives private lessons at the high school up the road.   THANK YOU GREYHOUND!!!

After some sleep, a chance to sweat while teaching my cycling class, an opportunity to spend a gift card from Lululemon that I had received from a PT client, a nice quiet lunch, a handful of mallow creme pumpkin candy, a spectacular find of a $16 bikini to take with me on my adventure next week, and a thumbs up from Bud's band director to take private lessons from Mr. Kavanaugh, my day was 120% better.  I was smiling again!  And my hives were under control and not itchy!

I have six more "sleeps" until I get to escape while my family has to fend for themselves and my clients at the gym have to figure out how to get by without me for a while.  I will be on a secret mission on Saturday, October 8th.  I cannot tell anyone about it until after it happens because it is that Top Secret!  It is such an AMAZING Birthday treat that I am almost giddy.  I am grinning from ear to ear right now!  

So sorry for all the downer stuff earlier but check back in the next few days to see how the transition back to workouts goes and how the Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole Mission goes down!

Stay tuned and have a great day kids!

Later Gators,

Liz