two weeks of workouts

as discussed with coach, i have been doing 8x workouts per week, with 2 in each discipline plus 2 strength training sessions. guts-wise i feel great, and i have gotten up each morning looking forward to the day's workout. i know that feeling won't last forever, but it feels so good now to be in a workout groove. 

here's what last week looked like: 

• Mon: 40 min swim >1mi mixed drills + kick, plus strength training video 

• Tues: 35 min spin, with 5x2min intervals at my max with 2 min active recovery, stretching 

• Wed: 35 min run, with 8x1min intervals at max with 2 min AR, stretching + abs 

• Thurs: 1hr spin, 6-7 effort, plus strength training video

• Fri: 35-45min swim with intervals (E/B/E/H repeats, plus 50-100m max efforts)

• Sat: 1hr easy run, stretching + abs

• Sun: off

we had a loooong travel day on Monday, flying at 7am from Boston to Dallas, and then driving all over Dallas to see different families for brunch, lunch and dinner. i had originally planned to run on Monday, but it became an inadvertent day off. luckily my in-laws have a fancy shmancy gym a 5min run away from their house, so i've been able to get in a couple of good spin and swim workouts. this is my plan for the rest of Christmas week:

• Mon: Christmas travel, off

• Tues: 35 min hill run

• Wed: 40 min swim >1mi mixed drills and kick + strength training routine

• Thurs: 40 min spin , 10x1min intervals at max with 1 min AR, abs + stretching

• Fri: Swim speed work

• Sat: 1 hr spin @ 6-7 effort + strength training routine

• Sun: 50 min easy run + stretching

we travel back to Beantown on Monday evening, so my plan is to do a swim that morning. might be wishful thinking schedule-wise... we shall see!

hope you all had a great holiday season with your loved ones!

fatal disk error

'fatal disk error' was the last thing my computer said to me yesterday.

it has been giving me the silent treatment ever since. i feel like we're about to break up. worst of all, i had NO IDEA it was coming. i mean, sure, we've had our tiffs here and there... and last week he didn't want to do any updates for me. but i didn't even begin to think that it was the beginning of the end!

since i can't seem to post on blogger from my iPad (or can I? intertron geniuses, discuss), my posts are likely to be sparse. hubs let me borrow the fancybook to post this, but he's a super busy codemonkey CTO so the chances of me using his compy during the day to make my SUPER IMPORTANT blog posts is unlikley.

maybe Santa will bring me a late present?

dirty vampires

today was the first of my weekly blood draws for a month.

after the month of four pokes is over, i move on to twice-a-month for a month, then once-a-month for three months. then, finally FINALLY i'll only have to go in once every three months (for infinity and beyond).

so, the dirty vampires (aka amazing lab technicians at my GI office) and i have started a countdown.

G the lab tech said it first, so i'll give him double quote credit: "8 POKES til FREEDOM!"

workout timing

saw this interesting summary of a journal in the NYT. they looked at circadian rhythms, and how they are affected by exercise, as well as how they are affected by the timing of that exercise. the preliminary results (in mice, of course) seem to point to afternoon exercise as having the most benefit on sleep rhythms.

from well.blogs.nytimes.com

i'm all over the place when it comes to workout timing preferences.

• i like my runs in the AM
• i like my rides in early-mid afternoon, even if it's 110F on a sweltering TX highway
• i like my swims either at the ass-crack of dawn OR in the evening, after 7.

i always sleep slightly better during the training season. regular, intense exercise just does that for me. it's not something i notice until it's gone. there are a few exceptions, of course. if i have an intense late evening swim  i will zonk out almost immediately upon return home, and any long ride >5hrs or long run >2hrs will make me soooo sreeeepy. 

what works best for y'all? do you ever notice better sleep when you work out at different times of the day? 

senseless

the violence that occurred against children today is absolutely senseless. i am numb with fear and grief, worry and anxiety. my heart breaks for the parents, children, and people of their community. what is going wrong in this world? and what can we do to keep it from happening time and time again??

i don't have answers. i just have tears for the CT families. and infinite kisses and snuggles for my blissfully unaware, happy, healthy baby. tell your love ones how much they mean to you whenever you can!

pills

this is how many pills i take every morning now: 

from the top: 

1. Prednisone (4x 10mg tabs)
2. 6-mercapto-purine (1.5 50mg tabs)
3. Lialda (5x 1.2gm tabs, 1 pill over the suggested maximum dose)
4. Probiotic (2x Jarro capsules)
5. Multivitamin (generic prenatal brand)
6. Calcium (chewy!)

that = 14.5 pills. sheeee-it. 

a year ago, all i took was the prenatal vitamin and 4 Lialda tabs. now, i won't be on the prednisone for forever, but it will take me a long time to taper off. and eventually i should be able to decrease the Lialda back down to 4 or less, assuming the 6MP does its job. sometimes i day dream about just not taking the pills, and how maybe magically i will get better without them. but then i wake up, and do my part to be compliant. 

monday i go in for my first round of 6MP monitoring blood work. wish my white count and liver enzymes good luck!

it's the plan, man

after weeks and WEEKS of having to reschedule the meeting with coach (illness, poor timing with naps, etc), i finally got to meet up with Jason and talk about the coming months. it was a short conversation--my own fault for being late, kudos to coach for putting up with me--but i am so so SO SO SO EXCITED to get to moving.

there's a skosh of uncertainty around where exactly i'll be doing all of my racing and training come April, but i've scoped out races in multiple locales just in case. no big hairy news to announce, we just bounce back and forth from Austin a lot so i've added ATX training races to the New England mix. i'll just have to decide/register as we go. you know, to keep things interesting.

run:
Coach said fun-run races were good for Jan-April. after that point, they'll start to take away from the longer weekend training sessions, since the fun runs are almost always weekenders. he did add, though, that a half marathon in May would be on the training calendar. after the May 13.1 i'll likely do long runs on my own. here's the plan:

• a 5k in Jan (Quincy YMCA Frozen 5k?),
• a 10k in Feb (suggestions? might just be a Charles River fun run if i can't find a supported one)
• a 10k-10miler in March (Salem Black Cat 10miler)
• a 15K in April (Boston suggestions? or the Cap 10k + Town lake trail run)
• a 13.1 in May (Boston's Run to Remember OR XTERRA trail half marathon in Waco)

bike:

pretty much any supported rally/bike ride is game. looks like i'll be doing ~ 4 100 milers, a couple 90s, a couple 80s, a couple 70s, you get the idea. May is around the time i'll hit longer miles on the bike, so that's when i'll start joining the rallies. i'm thinking: 

• part of the Shiner GASP (50-80mi. hell, maybe even the full 100 if i feel up to it?) in May
• Best Buddies 50/100 miler from Boston in June
• Mount Washington 100miler (supposedly the hardest century in NE...super hilly/mountainous. eep) in July

swim:

swim is pretty open. i've only found two good open water swim events, both in May, so they're the only things on the list. otherwise i'll get OWS practice in the triathlons i do throught the season. 

• 1.8 or 3mi OWS in Maryland
• 2k OWS in Austin

triathlon:

the only thing Coach has set for sure is at least one 70.3. timing is flexible, from early June to early July. a few of them i'm considering: 

• Patriot Half (Freetown, MA) mid June
• Rev3 Quassy (Connecticut) in June
• Buffalo Springs (Lubbock) end of June
• Muscomaman (New Hampshire) end of July

i also got the go ahead to do sprints and olympics as i see fit/if they seem fun/ if they fit with my schedule. so i'm considering doing 2-3 of these, likely 1 sprint and two olympics:

• Republic of TX (sprint) mid April
• Cap Tex (olympic) end of May
• Escape the Cape (sprint) mid June
• Black Fly (olympic) New Hapshire, early July

whew. feels GOOOOD to have that out there!  

from now until the beginning of February i'll be doing 2x workouts in each discipline each week. within those 6 workouts, 1 of each discipline will involve some intensity/intervals. throw in two short-ish strength training sessions, and a weekly massage, and i've got me a plan! 

then, come February,  shit really gets real i start my official IM training schedule. eeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

post-procedure update

the doc and i decided to do a flexible sigmoidoscopy after looking at my flare track record this year. 3 flares in a year is a lot for me, and she figured we needed to sneak a peek to see where i stood disease-progression wise.

Monday morning I had the pleasure of getting up bright and early (5AM) to do a colon prep for my flexible sigmoidoscopy procedure. i'll spare you the details of the colon prep (you're welcome.) needless to say, not fun for me, not fun for poor CTO in the next room!

i opted for no sedation during the procedure, which was... an interesting move on my part. i guess after having a 36 hour natural labor, i was a little over-confident in my pain tolerance capabilities. this was my mood in pre-op:

i'm not sure why i was certain it would be fine, because every other scope i've had done i've been sedated for. AND i was in the middle of a flare, which makes things more uncomfortable anyways. so. i chose no sedation. BOYHOWDY that was uncomfortable/awkward/alien-baby birthing weird. and the doctor kept trying to talk to me about Texas BBQ. i tried to talk back, but it's hard to remember the name of that badass brisket place in Lockhart when you feel like this:

                                                                  from youtube.com

next time, i'm asking, no BEGGING,  for the Versed and Fentanyl. #facepalm.

all in all, the doc said things didn't look great, but they didn't look terrible. my UC has progressed further up my colon (BOO) but it isn't classifiable as severe UC yet (yay? it was mild before.) we decided to up my meds to the immunosuppressive class 6-MP. it's usually used as a chemotherapeutic agent for people with certain cancers like leukemia, but is is also used in much lower doses to treat UC and Crohn's disease. it can cause a whole host of gnarly side effects (lowered white count, bone marrow suppression, increased risk of all kinds of illness, liver failure, lymphoma, pancreatitis....)

i'll be going in weekly for a month for bloodwork, then twice a month for a month, then once a month for three months, then once every three months for forever to monitor my white count and liver enzymes.

hopefully i'll be able to wrangle the baby, get my blood work done, get back in shape, get my guts better, AND train for the IM all at the same time. oh and did i mention i'm looking for a nursing job now too??

it's a tall order, but that's how i roll. i worked full time as an RN, went to grad school full time, and taught part time ALL AT THE SAME TIME, in addition to marathon and 70.3 training. i. can. do. this.

oh. i also turned 31 on Saturday. that was fun :)

**disclaimer: i am not a doctor, and i am not giving out medical advice. i am merely documenting what i am going through, and providing bits of information about it here and there. if you have UC or questions about it, please contact your doctor. (you can email me too, but just for chit-chat. i will not give you medical advice!)**

farewell and best of luck, @chrissysmiles!

if you haven't heard, triathlon's most recent female legend Chrissy Wellington has retired from IRONMAN.

i'm sure she's making the best decision for herself, but man i am going to miss watching her race! she was something else. read her autobiography, A Life without Limits if you haven't already. inspiring to say the least! and she made me stone-cold laugh-out-loud.

cheers, chrissy wellington. you'll be missed!

sharing is caring

so, i guess there are a two things i should share here, if i'm going to be honest about my IRONMAN Louisville journey. these two things affect my day-to-day life, my nutrition, my training, and even my fertility.

#1) i have ulcerative colitis. follow the link if you'd like to learn more about it; pubmed does a great job of explaining it, so no need to repeat here.
#2) i am a glutard. (= gluten intolerant). sometimes i'm better about it than others. but i feel best when on a gluten free (GF) diet.

lately i haven't been feeling well. i don't know if it's the series of 3 colds and the flu i've had over the past 2 months that just wore my body down. i don't know if it's the emotional stress of the past year: having a baby, being so far from family, staying at home to care for the baby instead of going back to work as a nurse, feeling shifts in my relationship with the CTO, etc. i don't know if it's because i fell off the GF bandwagon for a month.

whatever the reason, my guts are NOT happy. i have an appointment with my GI doctor this week (right after my meeting with my coach...hmm). i'll probably have to change medications to a more serious medication class, a move that is irreversible. once you move up to the bigger guns, there is no going back. and eventually, if you run out of meds that work for you, surgery is next. so, needless to say, i'm not super excited to move up in medication classes. but i'm already taking more than the maximum dose of my regular medication. and i sure  as hell can't feel the way i feel right now and be any kind of active.

this last week the most i have done is walk from the couch to the bathroom, back to the couch, and back and forth from the baby's room. and it exhausts me. i get nauseous and can hardly eat anything, so my blood sugar drops and i feel lightheaded often. combine with taking care of a fussy baby, and i'm pooped. pun intended.

why on earth would i have signed up for an IRONMAN race if i feel this way? well, i didn't feel this way when i signed up, and i certainly don't feel this way all of the time. what i'm going through is called a flare. i've had two this year (which is a lot for me, i usually go years between them.) eventually, i will need surgery to remove my colon.

after some soul searching post-baby, i realized i was aching for triathlon, for running, for activity again. and IRONMAN has been a life goal of mine for 15 years or so. the CTO and i decided that next year, 2013, would be the best year for me to give it a go. i'm not working as an RN right now, so wouldn't have to navigate training between nightshifts. i'm taking care of the baby, but could find some help here and there to accommodate my training and get the little man used to being in day care/school.

AND, i want to do this race before things get really bad with my guts. i know someone has done a full with an ileostomy, but i don't want to have to go there if i don't have to.

we thought it was the perfect timing.

maybe it still will be. i'm just a little nervous right now, based on how i feel in this flare. i want this IRONMAN so badly i can taste it. but do i want it so badly that i'm willing to sacrifice my colon? no. especially since women with UC experience markedly decreased fertility after colon resection. the CTO were and I were thinking of trying for #2 sometime after the IM. so. my GI doctor and i will have a come-to-Jesus talk about what to do with me on Thursday.

here's hoping we come up with an IRONMAN-friendly solution.