Training log - Week ending 7/31/2022

This week was 56 miles of running, ~1000 yards of swimming and 27 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

Eh - one good day, and one not so good day. I was decently happy with Wednesday's tempo interval workouts - that was a workout I couldn't have done a few weeks ago. 

However, on Saturday I was banking on a drop in humidity and temperatures for my marathon pace workout, so that I could get a sense of my fitness. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and it was hot and humid for the run.  I did the workout anyway, trying to focus on effort regardless of how slow it was, but I had to really back off and add in multiple water breaks, and the workout was a slog anyway. 

I debated whether to bail on the workout, but decided that I was better off finishing it at whatever pace I could hold to at least get the effort into the body.

So I still don't know what shape I'm in.  I do know things are improving, so I'll give it another week or two.

Dailies:

Monday:  6 mile fartlek on the track (did a few 200s at about 50 seconds each playing with form) and then 6 "miles" of pool-running.   Foam rolling at night.  

Tuesday: 3.5 miles easy (9:22), time team workout, 6.5 miles easy (9:39), and upper body weights/core.

Wednesday:  12.5 miles, including 2x(2K, 1200, 1600) and then 2x200.  Splits were 8:48, 5:17, 6:59; 8:44, 5:14, 6:54, 48, and 47.   Recoveries of about 3 minutes within the main set and 6 minutes between sets (full recovery for the 200s).  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming.  Sports massage at night.

 

Thursday: 12 "miles" pool-running and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling in evening

Friday: 3 miles easy (9:42), time workout, 7.5 miles easy (9:38) and then upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 17 miles, including a marathon effort workout of 4, 3, 2, and 1 miles at marathon effort with 1 mile easy in between (paces were 7:45, 7:46, 7:56, and 7:49).  Followed with injury prevention work and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

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

Training log - Week ending 7/24/2022

This week was 52 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 27 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

This is supposedly week 2 of training for the Chicago Marathon, though I'm not sure I'm doing it (I'll decide in another week or two).

In my marathon cycles, I do 3-4 sets of a 2 week mini-cycle, alternating between the A week schedule and the B week schedule, before tapering.   In past cycles, on the A weeks I've done intervals on Tuesday, a tempo workout on Friday and then a progressive long run on Sunday (on the B week I do a Wednesday workout and then a marathon pace workout on Saturday). 

However, this time I'm mixing it up this cycle to try something different - instead of the tempo and progressive long run with 48 hours separation, I'm doing a longer track/hills workout on Friday morning and then an easy long run the next morning (with some strides in the second hour to keep it interesting).   Followed by a recovery day.

I don't think this is any harder than my previous schedule - in fact it feels a bit easier (you don't realize how hard progression runs are on the body until you don't do them).   But it's a different stress, and I think that one needs to switch up training from time to time in order to continue to respond.  So now my training two week cycle looks like this:

Week A: M: pool-running; T: intervals; W: easy miles; Th: pool-running; Fr: tempo or hill/tempo intervals; Sa: 18-20 miles easy with strides in middle; Su: pool-running.

Week B: M: A short run with 4-8 200s plus pool-running; T: easy miles; W: Stamina workout; Th: pool-running; F: easy miles; Sa: 16-17 miles including marathon pace work; Su: pool-running and/or easy miles.

We will see how it works.  And if I go through with the full cycle.

Dailies:

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

Tuesday: 11.5 miles, including 6x800, 2x200 in 3:25, 3:21, 3:21, 3:18, 3:16, 3:12, 46, and 46.  2:xx-2:5x recovery between the 800s, and full recovery after the 200s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday:  Streaming yoga and 10.5 miles (9:44), with drills/strides.  Foam rolling in evening.

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

Friday: 12 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 2x2K in 8:54 and 8:49 with ~3 minutes jogged recovery in between.  Then back to the hill for 6 hill repeats (30 seconds each), cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).  Then back to the track for 2K, 2x1K in 8:45, 4:21, and 4:18 with ~3 minutes jogged recovery between each. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 18 miles (9:20) mostly easy but with a fartlek of 8x1 minute on, 8 minutes easy starting in the second hour.  Followed with injury prevention work and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

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

Training log - Week ending 7/17/2022

This week was 52 miles of running, 1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

Since I haven't raced in a while, I attempted a 5K parkrun on Saturday. I went out conservatively but still blew up (it was fairly warm and sticky, and I underestimated how conservative I needed to be). The good news was that my gait was not much of an issue in the race. I just ran slowly and paced poorly. Both of which are easier to fix than the dystonia. 

I'm now 12 weeks out from the Chicago Marathon - I'm not sure if I'm going to do it, but I lengthened my long run this weekend to preserve the option. Rather than do a progression, I kept the run mostly at very easy pace, but with a fartlek in the middle (the on sections were essentially strides). Since I raced the day before, I didn't want to do a progression run. Keeping it easy reduced the stress of the run slightly, and adding the 60 second pick-ups ensured that I didn't just shuffle the whole thing.

If I do decide to fully train for Chicago, I think I'll be substituting these types of long runs in for progression long runs.  I love long progression runs, and they are very easy for me.  Too easy, I think - I suspect I'm not getting an adequate stimulus from these runs anymore.   Time to swap things up a bit.

Dailies:

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

Tuesday: 11 miles, including 1600, 5x800, 2x200 in 6:50, 3:17, 3:17, 3:16, 3:14, 3:14, 47, and 47.  5:38 recovery after the 1600, 3:0x-3:3x recovery after the 800s (too long, due to track congestion) and full recovery after the 200s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday: 8 miles (9:56), with drills/strides. Foam rolling in evening.

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

Friday: 4 miles (9:44) plus drills. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 3.5 mile warm-up, and 5K parkrun in 22:19.  Later 6 miles (9:40), leg injury prevention work, and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 16.5 miles, mostly easy, but with a section of 8x(1 minute on; 8 minutes easy) in the middle of the long run.  Followed with 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Race report: Anacostia Parkrun, July 16, 2022

I ran the Anacostia Park Run today, finishing in a time of 22:19, which was 2nd overall and top female in a very small (maybe 40 people?) event.

I haven't raced since Broad Street in early May, and so I needed to jump in something, anything.  I considered running the Harrisburg mile next Wednesday night, but it's a long drive up there and back, and fitting it into my schedule was looking harder and harder.  So I decided to find something to run this weekend, and settled on one of the local parkruns.   We have 5 parkruns locally; I opted for Anacostia because it was the closest one that was on a paved surface.

Park runs don't start until 9 am, so I slept in, stretched, and then arrived just after 8 am to start my warm-up (as always, 15-20 minutes easy jogging, 3 minutes at half-marathon effort, 4x30 seconds at 5K effort, and 4x10 seconds at mile effort).  I finished up around 8:40 and noted three things of interest.  1) I was the only person there besides the parkrun volunteers; 2) there was no water around; and 3) there was a helicopter hovering about 150 meters away over the lawn of a government building.

The good news for point 1 is that people started showing up about 5 minutes later.  As for point 2 - whelp that one was on me.  I was pretty thirsty, but there was no water, and not enough time to jog back to my car.  Next time I'll bring a bottle with me.

Point 3 was the interesting one.  Apparently the National Parks Service was doing some sort of rescue drill, where the helicopter would hover over the lawn, drop a hoist, raise the hoist, and then fly over us to briefly hover over the Anacostia River before flying back to the lawn to repeat.

All of which was really interesting to watch.  The strong breeze generated by the helicopter was also appreciated.  But...it was also ear-splitting loud - too loud to start the run (you couldn't hear the starter say "go").

Fortunately, they ended the drill shortly after 9 am, meaning that the park run was able to start.

***

It felt pretty hot and humid and the sun was bright, so I decided to go out conservatively and then hopefully build in the second half (the course was a simple out and back on a paved bike path).  We started, and I was immediately passed by 7 people.  That was refreshingly normal - I am NEVER fast off of the line.  What was also refreshingly normal was that my gait was actually holding up pretty well despite being near others.

I started building and soon pulled in a few people.  By about half a mile in, I was running comfortably and in second place, with a young girl (14, I think) in front.  She probably had about 20 seconds on me - I decided to work to reel her in gradually.

And I did reel her in, but at the same time started feeling worse and worse.  And the run just went downhill from there, with at least one walking break.  The funny thing was - I wasn't the only one this happened to - everyone was struggling.  The end result was that I ran/jogged my way to second place overall, about 20 seconds behind the male winner.

My plan had been to go out conservative and negative split.  Instead I ran the following splits:

Mile 1: 6:57
Mile 2: 7:11
Mile 3: 7:22
last .11: 47 seconds

Ooops.

The good news is that my bad race was due to poor execution and lack of fitness, not gait issues.  In fact, my gait felt pretty good except for a few steps at the end when I had to run on grass.  So I've got my work cut out for me now.

Other notes:

• According to WeatherUnderground, it was 83 degrees with a dew point of 74 at the start.  So a bit hotter than I expected it to be (and bright sunshine with no shade).  So not entirely surprising that I blew up.  I should have gone out MUCH more conservatively.
• I really need to bring a water bottle to the start next time - I don't think I did myself any favors starting the race feeling thirsty, even though it was so short a race.  But this is why it's important to race periodically - to remember this sort of stuff.
• I'd much rather be limited by lack of fitness and bad pacing than my gait, so I'm OK with this.   I also really want to jump into another race so I can execute better.

Training log - Week ending July 10, 2022

This week was 62 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

I stepped back to 1mg of the Artane, and it seems to be helping a lot.  My gait isn't perfect, but it is much smoother than before, to the point where I feel like I am limited by lack of fitness rather than coordination.  

I did a few miles on my treadmill on Saturday afternoon because I hadn't run on it in a while, and was pleasantly surprised to run easily on it like a normal person (before, I had to touch the front panel at times to keep my balance).  

My workouts all felt a bit better too.  My running just feels more normal.  Like an out of shape normal, but that's OK - I can work with that.

Dailies:

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

Tuesday: 12 miles, including 3x(1200, 800, 400).  Splits were 5:15, 3:25, 1:42; 5:03, 3:20, 1:39, and 4:59, 3:16, 95.  2:4x-2:5x recovery after the 1200s and 800s, and 1:3x recovery after the 400s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday: 11 miles (9:49), 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: 12 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 2x3200m in 14:18 and 14:10 with ~5:30 jogged recovery in between.  Then back to the hill for 6 hill repeats (25-35 seconds each), cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).  Then back to the track for 4x200m in 48, 47, 47, and 47 with full recovery between. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 9 miles very easy (9:54), drills and strides, upper body weights/core and then 3 miles very easy on treadmill (9:37).  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 14.5 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:37 pace, next 4.5 miles averaging 8:23 pace, and the next 5 miles averaging 7:34 before a half-mile jog.   Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 7/03/2022

This week was 58 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

This was my first full week on Artane (I only take it on running days, not every day).  On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, I took half a tablet before running.  I ended up having pretty good workouts on Tuesday and Friday.  The dystonia wasn't totally gone, but much improved, and consequently I ran with or in front of those who were dropping me the week before.

Over the weekend, I bumped up the dose to a full tablet (the neurologist told me I could try this).  My hope was even more improvement.  However, it didn't improve the dystonia anymore, but did make me a bit weaker.  My 200m repeats on Sunday were comically slower than my 1200m repeats on Tuesday.  I also did hex bar deadlifts on both Tuesday and Sunday - Tuesday I deadlifted 140 pounds; on Sunday I deadlifted 105 pounds....

So...clearly that didn't work.  I'll return back to the half tablet and continue with that.  I have some baclofen that I was also prescribed - I'm debating whether I want to try that or just stick with the Artane.

Dailies:

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

Tuesday: 11 miles, including 4x1200, 2x400 in 5:09, 5:01, 4:58, 4:56, 93, and 95.  2:3x-2:5x recovery between the 1200s and full recovery between the 400s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

 

Wednesday: Streaming yoga and 11 miles (9:44), with drills/strides. Foam rolling in evening.

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

Friday: 12 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 2x2K in 8:50 and 8:42, with ~3 minutes jogged recovery in between.  Then back to the hill for 6x0:45 hill repeats, cycling twice through a sequence of easy, moderate, powerful).  Then back to the track for 2K, 400m in 8:42 and 97, with ~3 minute recovery between. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 10 miles easy (9:55), drills and strides, and streaming yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 10 miles on the track, including 2400m in 10:51, 2 laps jog, and then 2x8x200m, with 200m jog between and 400m jog between sets.  Later did 4 miles very easy (10:10).  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

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.