Training log - Week ending June 26, 2022

This week was 55 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

On Wednesday, I finally managed to see a second neurologist to get a second opinion on my gait/coordination issues (I scheduled this appointment several months ago - it takes a while to see neurologists these days).

The appointment was worth the wait - he spent a full hour with me, including having me jog up and down the hallway for about 5 minutes while he watched.    He confirmed that clearly whatever I'm dealing with gait-wise is mild (good news), and it wasn't MS or anything else sinister.  

He also noted that my head tended to tilt to the right in a weird way when I ran, and I was swinging my right arm oddly (I wasn't aware of either of these).  He then suggested dystonia - had I ever heard of it?  (the answer is yes).

I left the appointment with prescriptions for two medications - trihexyphenidyl (the generic version of Artane) and baclofen.  Both of these medications are approved for Parkinson's disease, but used off-label for other conditions, including dystonia.  I was to start with a half-tablet of the Artane and see what that did.  If it didn't help, or only helped a little, I was then allowed to experiment with any amount and combination of the two medications, up to a maximum of 1 full tablet of the Artane plus two tablets of baclofen.

So I started with the prescribed half-tablet of Artane on Saturday, and it really does seem to make a difference - I can feel my legs moving freely again, and it feels like I have so much more hip extension than I did.

So that's awesome.  I still had some stiffening/jerkiness at times (triggered by noises behind me) so I may experiment next weekend with a full tablet of the Artane.  The Artane has a long list of potential side effects including difficulties concentrating and poor short term memory - that's why I'm testing it out on weekends first.

In other news, the estrogen continues to work well for me - my aerobic fitness is getting better and better each week.

All good things.

Dailies:

Monday:  9 "miles" of pool-running and upper body weights/core.   Foam rolling at night.  

Tuesday: 10 miles, including 2x1600, 2x800 in 6:59, 6:51, 3:21, 3:23, with 5 minutes recovery after the first 1600, 3 minutes recovery after the second 1600, and 2:30 recovery between the 800s.  Followed with four hill sprints, leg strengthwork, and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday: 8.5 miles (10:09), with drills/strides. Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling in evening

Friday: 11 miles, with a blended track/hill workout consisting of 3x10 second hill sprints (6% incline, jog to the bottom for recovery), then to the track for 2K, 1200m in 8:59 and 5:16, with 2:42 jogged recovery in between.  Then back to the hill for 6x1:00 hill repeats, cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).  Then back to the track for 2x1200 in 5:17 and 5:08, with 2:49 recovery between . Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 9 miles easy (9:55), drills and strides, and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 15 miles progressive, split as the first 5 miles averaging 9:30 pace, the next 5 miles averaging 8:18 pace, and next 5 miles averaging 7:34 pace, followed by a cooldown mile.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 6/19/2022

This week was 53 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

Week 3 on the estrogen.  I think I'm feeling better, but it was also pretty hot and humid for most of the week, which made it hard to distinguish feeling hot and slow because of weather from feeling hot and slow due to lack of estrogen.

This week, I started introducing in blended workouts - mixing hills and work on the track.  Tuesday's workout was spontaneous - I showed up to the track workout only planning to do a few 800s, but then upon finishing thought that I'd test out a hill repeat sequence that I had seen on a friend's training log - 6x1:00 up the hill, cycling twice between easy, moderate, and harder effort.

Friday's run was more deliberate, as I started with a few short hill sprints to wake things up, before heading to the track for some long repeats - 2K and 1K.  After the 1K I jogged over to the hill to do another 6x1:00 hill sequence (again, twice times easy, moderate, hard) and then jogged back to the track for a final 1K repeat.

The workout really doesn't look like that much - it's a total of about 3 miles worth of hard running, with plenty of recovery packed in.  But it was challenging in practice, especially the last 1K. 

This article explains why that last 1K was so hard - the hard hills recruit fast twitch muscle fibers, which aren't used as much when running aerobically.  Once those fibers are turned on, you continue to use them when you return to the track - training those muscle fibers to do a new, aerobic job.   Very interesting.  And apparently a good workout to do when your focus is on general strength and power, rather than race-specific training.

Dailies:

Monday:  9 "miles" of pool-running and streaming yoga.   Foam rolling at night.  

Tuesday: 10 miles, including 4x800m in 3:31, 3:31, 3:29, 3:27, with 2:3x-2:4x recovery in between.  Then did 6x1:00 hill repeats, cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).    Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday: 9 miles (10:10), with drills/strides and streaming yoga. Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling in evening

Friday: 11 miles, with a blended track/hill workout consisting of 3x10 second hill sprints (6% incline, jog to the bottom for recovery), then to the track for 2K, 1K in 9:04 and 4:23, with 3:00 jogged recovery in between.  Then back to the hill for 6x1:00 hill repeats, cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).  Finally I jogged back to the track for another 1K repeat in 4:25. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 8.5 miles easy (10:12), drills and strides, and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 14 miles progressive, split as the first 5 miles averaging 10:24 pace, the next 4 miles averaging 8:57, and next 5 miles averaging 8:11.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - week ending 6/12/2022

This week was 53 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

This was my second week on the estrogen gel (Divigel), and it seems to be helping.  I've been less out of breath with each run, and my heart rate while running is dropping.  I noted last week that my ankles were much less stiff within a few days of starting the gel, and that's persisted.

One unpleasant side effect of the gel was poor sleep - I'd fall asleep and sleep all night, but would not feel well rested in the morning.  I called the doctor's office and they confirmed that this was a known side effect that would ease with time, and it has.

I'm keeping a tally of how this estogen replacement therapy works for me, in case it's helpful to other women in the future.  To date:

Week 0: stiff ankles, achy hips, stiff and dead muscles, and heart rate in the 160s for easy runs - asthma fine but get out of breath very easily. 

End of Week 1: ankles much less stiff, as are muscles.  Hips improved.   Breathing still hard and HR elevated.  Very poor sleep.

End of Week 2: ankles great as are muscles.  Hips achy (but could be the deadlifting).  Breathing much improved and has dropped at the end of the second week.  Sleep started improving on Thursday evening, about 10 days after starting the Divigel.

In other news, I officially canceled my flights to Minnesota for Grandma's Marathon.  Even though I'm feeling better, it just doesn't make sense to travel all the way to Duluth at this point.  I was fortunately able to get a full refund for my flight (I suspect this is because they changed the times of my flight after I booked) so the only money I've lost is the entry fee.

Dailies:

Monday:  9 "miles" of pool-running and streaming yoga.   Foam rolling at night.  

Tuesday: 10 miles, including 8 Iwo Jima hills (a bit over 2 minutes powerful uphill, 90 second jog, 45 seconds downhill stride, 60 second jog to bottom).  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.
 

Wednesday: 6.5 miles (10:04), upper body weights/core, 3.5 miles (9:33), and drills/strides. Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling in evening

Friday: 10 miles, including 2x2K on the track in 9:02 and 8:52 (2:44 recovery) and then six 30 second hard hill repeats up a 6% incline.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 8.5 miles easy (10:10), drills and strides, and upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 14.5 miles, including a relaxed fartlek of 9x4 minutes on, 3 minutes off ("on" was at a moderate effort).   Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 6/5/2022

This week was 27 miles of running, 500 meters of swimming and 39 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

I attempted a workout on Tuesday morning, but didn't even complete the first 1200.  I made it about 600 meters into the rep and felt like I was in the last lap of a 5K on the track, so I shut it down.  On the off chance that I just wasn't handling the hot and humid weather well, I tried the workout on the treadmill.  But that didn't work either - I got one 3 minute rep out of the way and was done.  So I called it a day.

It's pretty clear to me that my body's just struggling right now with all the hormonal changes, so I decided to pull back and spend a few low key days in the water before returning to land-running.

When I started running again on Saturday, my gait felt really awful.  But on Sunday it was a bit better, and I felt slightly better than I had before (I did intentionally keep the run to 12 miles and then add on some pool-running miles).  Of course this could also just be the fact that we had better weather this weekend than we did earlier in the week.

***

When I saw the OB-Gyn last week, she took some bloodwork to get a baseline before I started the estrogen.  I haven't discussed the results with her yet, but to my non-professional understanding, it looks like the values support menopause - my estrogen was unmeasurable, and my FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) was 71 - that value is consistent with menopause.

I was a little wistful to see this.  I've never wanted children, and always understood that it was going to be challenging for me to conceive (my cycle was awful and very erratic until I went on continuous birth control to stabilize it).  And yet the realization that the door was now shut on that stage of my life was sad.  It's a similar feeling to selling a home and walking out the door for the last time - you're relieved to be done with the transaction.  But at the same time, you can't go back now, only forward.  And there's a tiny voice that wonders if you took the right path.

***

On another note, I did some googling and redditing (I won't call it "research") and from what I can see, many of the things I've been dealing with over the past 18 months or so could be explained by the transition to menopause - even things as odd as quick electrical shocks down the legs (I've been dealing with those for a few years now).  And yes, a loss of coordination and struggles with balance and dizziness have been reported by other women.  Some women have a very easy ride; some do not.

So this makes me hopeful that perhaps now I am a bit closer to finally addressing my frustrations of the past 18 months.  It's just going to take more time.  And more patience.

Dailies:

Monday:  9 "miles" of pool-running and upper body weights/core.   Foam rolling at night.  

Tuesday: 8 miles - attempted a track workout, but bailed before I completed the first rep.  Moved inside to try it there, but still struggled, so called it a day.   Foam rolling in evening.
 

Wednesday: 9 "miles" of pool-running.   Massage in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and leg strengthwork.  Foam rolling in evening

Friday: 9 "miles" pool-running, including a set of 20x1 minute hard/1 minute easy and 4x30 seconds very hard/1 minute easy.  Followed with upper body weights/core. Foam rolling at night

Saturday: 8 miles easy (10:08), drills and hill strides, and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 12 miles progressive, split as the first 4 averaging 9:30, the next 4 averaging 8:37, and the next 4 averaging 7:42, plus 3 "miles" pool-running.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.