This week was 49 miles of running, 9 "miles" of pool-running, and 1000 yards of swimming -- training log is here.
This was my second full week on carbidopa/levodopa, and it seems to be helping some. One of my major issues has been an inability to extend my stride, and the C/L has helped that a lot, though I'm still a bit limited there.
At the same time, I'm still struggling with things like running in crowds or in the dark, which seems to aggravate my stiffness and inability to stride out. Basically, if you think of my running as an internet browser - it works decently if I'm by myself on a flat smooth surface. But start adding complexities like uneven pavement or other people nearby, and it's like opening additional tabs on the browser - open too many and things start locking up and freezing.
I told the neurologist this, and he told me that the C/L takes a few weeks to be fully effective, so give it time. So I will. It clearly helps, and that tells me that I'm on the right path.
I have to take the C/L three times a day at 5 hour intervals, and Saturday's awful run (intentionally done 4 hours after I took my morning dose) demonstrated that it does indeed wear off about 4 hours after ingestion. (I suspected this based on my experience during my last two long runs, but wasn't totally sure that it wasn't just the fatigue of the long run).
This short duration of effect means that I need to think carefully about timing the dosing with racing or long workouts. For Sunday's race, I took the first dose in the middle of the night, then the second dose about 90 minutes before the race. That worked mostly well in that the drug was effective for the entire race (though I didn't sleep well) so I think I'll have to do a variation of that for my long runs and marathon.
Dailies:
Monday: Upper body weights/core and 8 miles very easy with backpack (10:02). Foam rolling in evening.
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