Clusterfuck of Failures

I'm batting 1000% for things failing on me in the last 2 months. First, there was my lungs, and then my suspicion of thyroid malfunction. We can now add elbow and furnace failure,--although there's my ever present Morton's Neuroma. I won't even go into all the failures I am managing in my job!

My lungs are OK, as it turns out. I was having an allergic/asthmatic episode. I had full lung function tests that confirmed my lungs are OK--no COPD, no asthma, no nothing. So running a good air cleaner in my bedroom plus using albuterol before workouts plus daily Nasonex seems to have fixed that. Yay! The initial chest tightness I experienced may have been a combination of the episode plus tight pecs. After I was off the prednisone, it came back, but my massage therapist confirmed it was muscular.

As to the thyroid, I was correct in that it was underperforming. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an auto-immune disorder basically meaning my thyroid gland is under attack. Different people experience different rates of decline in function. While mine isn't horrifically bad (yet), it's enough that coupled with the intensive training I do that's it really noticeable to me. I'd noticed I'd put on a few pounds after increasing my training volume, and while I have indulged in more frequent treats, it's not been enough for me to be gaining more than a pound or so. And then even after paying careful attention to my calorie intake, the number wasn't budging.

I got tested in January and we upped my dose of Synthroid, but no weight came off, so my guess was that at my next test we would need to up the dose again. I was right! If this dose is effective, I should know in another week or so. Last time I was in this situation, 3 lbs. disappeared rather quickly without me even thinking about it. Good thing I pay attention to the nuances of my diet and weight, huh? My doctor said, "Maybe you are just getting old." I schooled her real good on that!  We also had a chat about testing me more often, and she's on board--all I have to do is indicate, "I don't feel right." I've known I've been off, and it's subtle for me to know it. I hope the new dose works, but at least I will get tested again in 6 weeks. Doctor said it might be hard to keep my TSH where I want it, but at least I will know we are doing everything we can. I would really like to be able to do Ironman Louisville while I am properly regulated. I have never experienced that, but I give myself some credit as to what I have been able to do all these years despite a fucked up thyroid.

Last week, it had been 2 weeks since my right inner elbow was sometimes hurting. I thought it might be from changing my swim stroke, and that may be a factor, but I went to ortho, and she confirmed what I had surmised from Internet--medial epicondylitis. Layman's term "golfer's elbow." Isn't that funny? Like I will ever golf! Anyway, it's overuse and it's on my right arm, and I'm right-handed so it makes sense. I think it's from increasing weights (and maybe once or twice using incorrect form), changing swim stroke, sewing, shoveling, basically using my good old right arm A LOT. Doctor says it can take 3 months to heal. I'm doing my 4x daily stretches (it's overuse of the flexors, particularly when twisting my wrist) and icing after I swim or lift. I am also being left handed whenever I can. It does seem to be a bit better after only a week. Of course, I asked if swimming was OK, lifting pianos (just kidding), and what kinds of lifts to avoid. Really it's open palmed biceps curls, but I notice that I need to be extra careful to lock my wrists on any overhead moves, and it seems to work. Swimming seems to aggravate a little, but again, if I lock my right wrist, it feels just fine.

Of course, the Morton's Neuroma in my right foot gets aggravated from time to time when I push the envelope. My toes were being tingly and numb last few days from the weekend festivities, but they seem fine today.

Last night, my furnace failed. I had a repairman here and went to sleep, only to wake at 2:45AM and notice the house was rather cold. Failure again. I've just had a part replaced that may be covered by warranty, but I don't care--I need heat! Luckily, since my house was all sealed up nicely a few months ago, the temps didn't drop too precipitously, and I had a ceramic heater laying around from when I'd had burst pipes a year ago. The new part is in, and fingers crossed, we are done for now, although I will probably have a new furnace installed in the spring (long story here that I will not go into--it's related to my 2012 Catastrophic House Failure episode, which spanned 7 months and included central air failure, full electrical service failure and contractor failure).

So that's 5 things. Am I waiting for 6? I sure as fuck hope not.

IWBMATTKY(M)T

IWBMATTKYT is the motto of The Sufferfest. It stands for I Will Beat My Ass Today To Kick Yours Tomorrow. While I am admittedly competitive, it is mostly a result of pushing myself harder so that I can...PUSH MYSELF HARDER.

It's been a few years (6) since I've trained for an early season long course triathlon. 6 years ago it was American Triple T in May. This time it's Clermont Challenge 1/2 IM and Olympic in just 3 weeks. Shit! While I don't have huge expectations for my upcoming race performance--for one thing, all my bike training will have been on the trainer--I still do not want to suck, so I've been hitting it hard since I officially began "training" on December 1:

Although if you remove the strength training hours, it's really not that much. Thank you Chicago winter for the opportunity to shovel snow! It would actually be reasonable training without all that. In these 13 weeks, I have:

• Finished the grueling Tour of Sufferlandria (week of 1/26).
• Won my AG at 2 supersprint triathlons (weeks of 2/2 and 2/16)
• Did back to back Olympic+ NothingMans (this past weekend).

Those 3 things above were crammed in the space of 5 weeks. It's been interesting riding the waves of fatigue followed by increased endurance/strength. I felt really good this weekend--much better than I thought I would--considering how much I've been doing. I usually do a 1/2 NothingMan around Thanksgiving, and when I am training for Triple T, I'll do several weekends of them. This past Thanksgiving, I did sprint/Oly/1/2 IM on consecutive days. Maybe I should have included that one more week above! That would make the training block even more impressive (to ME--I'm the only person I need to impress!).

NothingMans are opportunities to test out nutrition and pacing, which are really one and the same. Whenever someone says they had stomach issues in a race, well, it means they screwed up their pacing, too. You can't practice one without practicing the other. When I have a NothingMan (more than a sprint) on the menu, I am thinking about it and preparing for it several days in advance, the same as a "real" race, because I need to be in good nutritional (and sleep) status in order to perform well. I take my NothingMans seriously!

For this weekend, I used my old wetsuit for the swim, even though I swam in a pool. Once again, glad I did--I had a bit of mid-back soreness after wearing it Friday and Saturday, so I did some additional stretching Saturday night since I was wearing it again Sunday. It also let me get my arms used to swimming in the suit. I will wear it at least once a week up until race day.

The original plan for this weekend's NothingMans was to do Olympic distance (1500 swim, 25-mile bike, 10k run) both days, but on Friday I decided I wanted to swim 1/2 IM distance on Saturday, since I hadn't done that (straight swim--most of my swims are about 3,000 yards lately) in awhile. I also decided I would just bike 1:30 both days, because that would give me good bike volume for the week.

My pool was fucking hot both days. I was overheating wearing the suit, but it was still worth it to wear it. On Saturday, a woman in the locker room told me I should be a wetsuit model! How sweet of her to say that! I was actually worried I might not fit in the thing because I'm up a few pounds up (which I think is due to my thyryoid petering out more--will find out today), but it fit just fine. But I was a total spaz, and forgot to put on Bodyglide, so it was tough getting it on Saturday morning. I also forgot to bring a towel with me! I had just put my crap into a locker and realized I had no towel. I was like, fuck it, I'm not driving back home--I will just have to drip dry!

Once I got in and started swimming, I played games in my head--I didn't really need to swim 2100, so I just made myself a deal that if I didn't feel like I was slowing down too much by the time I hit 1500 that I'd just keep going. Well, I was fine, so I finished out the 2100. It was great to get the suit off. I changed into my biking clothes in the locker room and drove home to bike.

I was using a custom Infinit mix after the swim and for the bike and run. I'd queued up music to listen to (random older dance CDs) while I biked and ran, and had fun listening to stuff I hadn't heard in a few years. On the bike, I did my typical :30 warmup, then I did 4 intervals of mostly 1/2 IM watts plus. Getting off the bike, I did a relaxed but not lollygagging transition to get on the treadmill. After I ran for about :10 (I started out super easy), I started thinking that it would be good for me to get in 13.1 miles of running across the 2 NothingMans, so I made an executive decision to do 6.6 miles on Saturday and 6.5 on Sunday. What's a couple more tenths of a mile, anyway?

I felt pretty good running. I was actually surprised, since I'd beaten myself into submission a week ago between the warmup, actual race, and then running after that race. I kept in mind that I had to do this all over again on Sunday. I ate well at lunch and dinner, and aside from grocery shopping and cooking a nice meal (strip steaks Italian style in a tomato paste/Marsala/red wine/garlic reduction and sauteed Belgian endive/carrots), I laid around. Saturday night it was supposed to snow, and I was hoping we didn't get too much because I didn't want to have to shovel a lot just to go to the pool and swim 1500!

Here's my finishing sticker for Saturday, which was a 2100 swim, 32.5 mile bike and 6.6 mile run:

I actually slept until 5AM yesterday, which is odd for me, but hey, I'll take it! But I didn't want to start too late in the morning, either. Since I'd failed to take my Synthroid in the middle of the night, I had to take it right away and then wait 1/2 hour until I could eat or drink anything. I washed dishes, knowing I'd be creating 4 more bottles that day, and still had to wait a few minutes before I could have coffee and breakfast. Even though I could get away with eating maybe 1.5 hours before starting, I don't like doing that, especially since I wasn't particularly hungry when I woke up. But I got on my breakfast just after 5:30, and figured I'd start at 7:30. Well, we did get about 1/4" of snow, and I wanted to get that off the driveway anyway, and figured it would be a good little warmup. It only took me about :10 to do it, but I felt like I hadn't fully digested my breakfast in order to start by 7:30.

I ended up starting at 8:05, but even then, I felt queasy in the pool, because even though this was just a NothingMan, my body reacts the same as for an actual race, and it had only been 2.5 hours since I'd eaten, so that combined with a hot pool had me feeling like I would puke at any moment. Oh and I remembered a towel yesterday, and I also remembered Bodyglide, so my wetsuit went on quite easily. I kept wanting to slow down because I SO wanted to puke, but I didn't, and I finished and got the suit off, stretched a bit, suited up to bike and headed home.

It was snowing very lightly, which was nice to look at out the window while I was on the bike. My legs felt somewhat worked over from Saturday, but not too bad. My warmup pace was a little slower than on Saturday, but then I picked it up and ended up riding faster/harder on Sunday! But then I was wondering how I'd feel on the run. Same as for Saturday, I transitioned quickly (after throwing a load of laundry into the washer), and did my warmup same as on Saturday. I was surprised that my legs didn't feel so bad, so I figured I'd try and run just a bit faster than the day before. About :43 in, I accidentally stopped the treadmill instead of a pause (to get another bottle of Infinit out of the fridge), and was like now I have to do math to figure out how much more to go. I got my shit together, and since I wanted to end the run at a full minute, ended up running 6.52 miles. So Sunday's NothingMan was 1500 swim, 33.3 bike and 6.52 run, giving me this awesome sticker:

So across the 2 days I went well over 1/2 IM distance in total, felt like I had a decent pace throughout, practiced my nutrition, practiced swimming in the wetsuit and enjoyed myself! The spoils of this were 2 glasses of this:

I can no longer drink anything but French champagne, and this was the first French rose I'd had, and it is excellent! It's still dry, but just a hint of sweetness.

I have one more "big" week of training (although today is a much needed rest day) and then I actually sort of taper--well not really--I am considering this a "train through" set of races. I'm doing a 4-hour ride on Saturday and a 2-2:15 run on Sunday, so another 1/2 IM plus across 2 days, which is no big deal really, but that 4-hour ride will probably suck at some level.

So part of me wants to change the Sufferfest motto to IWBMATTKMT: I Will Beat My Ass Today To Kick Mine Tomorrow.

Mission accomplished!