Thanks Mark.  Been drinking loads of water the last couple of days and I'm pissing like a race horse!  Strong wind warning for tomorrow morning so will be a battle.  Off to bed now and up early for breakfast.  And yes roll on level 1!

 

Heh, I'm surprised I'm that high tbh!

 

Magrawlas- all the best for tomorrow.  I'm hoping next weekend brings a reduction to Level 1 at least for the country outside of Auckland.

Good luck Magrawlas!

Regarding Cheptegei's WR: too bad he didn't make the HR data visible in the strava upload. He used a FR 35 which has optical HR. It would be interesting to see what it was for that effort. Interesting that his average cadence at 190 was a bit lower than I would have guessed for 4 min mile pace.

Hoping for good news from Magrawlas.

As for me....

41 miles and 4.5 hours of pool-running
M: 7 miles easy (9:40), upper body weights/core, 4 miles easy (9:31)
T: 10 miles, including a track workout of 2x400, 3x800 in 97, 97, 3:23, 3:17, 3:17; 75 second recovery after the 400s; about 2:50 recovery after the 800s. Followed with leg strengthwork and streaming yoga.
W: 55 minutes pool-running and streaming yoga
Th: 5 miles very easy (10:22), and 55 minutes pool-running
F: 45 minutes pool-running and some leg strengthwork
Sa: 6 miles very easy (9:33), upper body weights/core, and 1 hour pool-running.
Su: 9 miles easy (9:21), streaming yoga, and 55 minutes pool-running

So... last week, after a crash-and-burn Saturday long run, I decided to get some blood pulled to check my ferritin and general CBC and also my vitamin D (because I'm supposed to be checking that regularly and haven't in a while). So I bought a blood test package from one of those online companies (they use a real lab - Quest - so the results themselves should be legit) and scheduled the blood pull for Wednesday.

Then I did Tuesday's workout, which was ridiculous. 97 seconds for 400m on the track felt like 85 seconds used to. The workout was supposed to be 2x400, 4x800, 2x400, but I bailed after my right ankle briefly spasmed during the 3rd 800.

I haven't mentioned it much, but I've also had some on-and-off mild nausea over the past few years that has become more persistent over the past few months. Between that and what seems like a really sharp loss of fitness I decided it was time to check in with the primary care doctor. He scheduled some more bloodwork (for Thursday) and a virtual appointment for this upcoming week.

I got my first round of bloodwork back on Thursday evening (directly from Quest). CBC normal, ferritin normal if surprisingly high for me or any runner (136 - I usually see between 50-90 when I am running well), vitamin D normal. But....a test for serum folate was also included. And that result came back low. It's 1.7, where the lab lists 5.4 and above as normal, and between 3.4 and 5.4 as "borderline."

Folate deficiency is sometimes seen in people with inflammatory bowel disease (check) and can result in fatigue and weakness even if not anemic (check). It's also often matched by B12 deficiency, which can result in fatigue and nerve pain. And guess who has had all sorts of nerve issues this year?

So...I'm pausing serious training until I meet with my primary care doctor and figure out how to proceed. I don't know everything he ordered checked, but I do know it included B12 and a complete iron panel.

And no, I'm not supplementing with folate in the meantime. a) I don't like to use supplements unless a doctor has told me to and b) my understanding is that if you have both a B12 and a folate deficiency, it's crucial to treat the B12 first - treating the folate without fixing the B12 can make nerve issues worse.

Unhealthy air killed my chances at running. Locals put on a 10k time trial I thought about training for. Now I’m thinking I need to train just to train. Maybe try getting back to 50 mile weeks with one day of speed and some TRX. It’s only supposed to be 97 here in a week.

So, 4 weeks until Rotorua Marathon and although the lockdown levels are slowly starting to be lifted again here, I'd say there's still a reasonable risk that the race can't go ahead (I give it 65% chance of happening although that could get better or worse depending how things go this week).

 

Fortunately I've found an alternative 2 weeks later, the Wairarapa Country Marathon, as a fallback option.  As luck would have it, it's a certified course, as its hosted Wellington Marathon Champs from time to time.  As luck would also have it, there's only been ~30 runners do the marathon the last few years (there is a half and 10k as well), so there's a reasonable chance it could go ahead at the current alert level, rather than needing us to relax restrictions further (as is the case for Rotorua).  Also, the entries are refundable (less $10) up until race week, so now I am in the amusing position of being entered in 3 marathons simultaneously (Rotorua, Wairarapa, and Christchurch 2021 which rolled entries from this year forward) although I'm only planning to run one.

You're not alone in that regard Mark; I registered for 4, though one went virtual so now it's down to 3 possibilities. I think DW is in a similar situation. I figure it's best to cast a wide net and hopefully end up with one race that goes ahead, rather than pinch pennies registering for only one race and getting screwed if it goes virtual/gets cancelled. I sure hope one of your 2 upcoming races goes ahead, your training has looked great and with good conditions you should be able to crack 2:30.

Pretty much over the piriformis now, but I can still feel it's sore on certain movements. I'm doing the stretches and exercises regularly now

20 miles of running this week. I seem to have lost a big chunk of fitness with the injuries; even short runs are tiring. Part of that may be body tension to "protect" the piriformis -- which it probably does not. I think we're over the western heatwave now, it should go back to great running weather now. Looking forward to building up mileage yet again

darkwave -- Glad you've diagnosed the problem, even if you're off hard running for a bit. Best to fix it properly and get back a little later.

Mark -- I agree that the marathon training may be a little light of miles. But you have a 1:10:46 half, and you're probably in better shape now than then. That half is equivalent equally trained to ~2:27:30. Even in better overall shape, you could argue you're not equally trained because you didn't average 120km/week. But it would be really difficult to claim that you're 10+ minutes less trained! With decent weather on the day (whatever day that turns out to be), I'd think you should be going for 2:32ish, but leave yourself a chance to stretch for 2:2x.

Earlier questions: "Is there a movement to go metric in the states?" You cannot be serious. This administration probably wants to take us back to biblical measures -- shekels, thumbs, cubits.... 
Abolish daylight saving time? Please! I agree with abolishing the time change -- but in California and the other west coast states, we'd like abolish "standard" time and stay on DST year round. Celifornia gave that a 70% favorable vote in 2018. 

I'm glad I've lived in both metric and imperial system, and can now convert quite accurately without thinking much about it. Of course that's not what I'd tell a Kiwi police officer if I were pulled over for speeding! (a bit harder to argue that with the cameras, though)

 

DW: Just saw your post after I put mine up. I'm glad you found the likely source of your fatigue. Not that this is necessarily useful for your situation, but in high school, after I grew an absurd amount in less than a year, I was extremely fatigued and it turned out my hemoglobin was low, around 9.0-9.5 (average for males is around 13-17). I was prescribed to take an iron supplement and it worked wonders; after about 2 months of that my hemoglobin was 13-something and I felt back to normal. I hope you can have a similarly easy fix. Along the same lines, I was feeling fatigued maybe a couple years ago and it turned out my hemoglobin was lower than usual (around 12), but the only other metric that was low was B12. I have taken a B12 supplement since then and this at least keeps my hemoglobin in the 13-13.5 range.

Thanks - that's useful to read.  The interesting thing in my case is that no indications of any sort of anemia.  Hemoglobin is 13.3 (my reference range is 11.7-15.5).  Folate deficiency can result in macrocytic red blood cells (RBCs that are too big to do their job well) but my CBC doesn't indicate that at all.

We shall see what the doctor says.  I don't have a diagnosis yet, just symptoms and a single labwork result, so....  OTOH, it was actually nice to see an out of range result that could explain why I've been struggling.  Kinda like when you take your car in to be serviced, and they can hear the same pinging noise that you hear when you drive it.

 

You're not alone in that regard Mark; I registered for 4, though one went virtual so now it's down to 3 possibilities. I think DW is in a similar situation. I figure it's best to cast a wide net and hopefully end up with one race that goes ahead, rather than pinch pennies registering for only one race and getting screwed if it goes virtual/gets cancelled. I sure hope one of your 2 upcoming races goes ahead, your training has looked great and with good conditions you should be able to crack 2:30.

Yup.  I was/am registered for Indy/Harrisburg/Northern Ohio/New Jersey/Richmond/WhiteRiver/CIM.  So a diversified portfolio.

Of those, four are still possible to go.  But, TBH, unless whatever I'm dealing with has a pretty quick fix, I think Northern Ohio/Harrisburg/White River are off the list as too soon.  CIM might still be an option.

Marky-Mark - I"m very hopeful one of your marathons happens.  I do agree with your take on the likelihood of the second.

Earlier questions: "Is there a movement to go metric in the states?" You cannot be serious. This administration probably wants to take us back to biblical measures -- shekels, thumbs, cubits.... 
Abolish daylight saving time? Please! I agree with abolishing the time change -- but in California and the other west coast states, we'd like abolish "standard" time and stay on DST year round. Celifornia gave that a 70% favorable vote in 2018. 

And I think this is why the time change will never go away.  Because staying on DST year round would be awful (I say as a morning runner)  Since the country will never be able to agree on which time we should stick with year round, we'll just keep going back and forth.

Magrawlas - congratulations on getting the first one under your belt (and also on being the first of us to race a marathon since the Pandemic started!).

That wind at 35 K had to be awful.  35K is a tough place to be in a marathon, and strong wind can sap one physically and mentally.  A combination of the two is rough.

Congratulations on the excellent placing also!  Many times, where one places is a better measure of one's race than the time on the clock.  (IMHO).

 

 

RP Are there forest fires near you causing the unhealthy air?

 

Cheers

YUP. We had ONE day of good air. The rest of the time it has been 130+. A  friend training for CIM did a 10k time trail (6:55/mi, points to a BQ-10) on Sunday and while I planned on running it with him I woke up late AND the AQI was a 150+ so I didn't expect anyone to be out there. Turns out they're all crazier than me and will run a 10k in "unhealthy" air. Newest fire has blown in enough smoke, and combined with me enrolling in a college course I'm probably not running today. It sucks because I'm losing that desire to run my 7 mile hill run as part of my morning routine, and the LAST time I stopped running this much it took a LONG time to get back to shape.

Bummer on hitting the wall.

CIM sent out a questionaire apparently. Asking if you'd participate with less aid, or rolling start, or no pacers, or earlier starting times from what I vaguely understand. Sort of the "how likely would you be willing to participate if we had less..." from what I heard. They just might be ordering up face coverings and starting faster runners earlier in the dark to space people out more.

darkwave 2020 is definately the year of "backup plans to my backup plans" and I think you could write a detailed novel with the amount of planning knowledge you have for races. Seriously impressive.