Saturday, January 21, 2012

Redefining My Limits

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm in management mode, and well, this means taking the past three days off, and I'm not sure when I'll swim, bike or run again. This past Wednesday night, the pissing thing got worst and I was going to the bathroom every hour, and well, this makes for very little sleep. I now have an appointment with a urologist in early February to see if we can figure out what is going on. To add insult to injury, I'm going on 12 days of an ear infection that just doesn't want to go away. Exposing my ear to the water from swimming and the cold air from biking and running might be exacerbating the infection, so I've decided to stop doing all three until the infection is gone. I've had ear infections in the past, but I was able continue to swim, bike, and run, all the while, feeling in improvement in the ear infection. However, this time around, things are not getting better, which leads me to ask, "Do I need to redefine my limits?"

Up until several months ago, I prided myself on being a consistent athlete and being able to push pass my perceived limits. I tackled my first trail marathon and won it, and I followed it up with an ironman two weeks later. My entire athletic career has been filled with some epic boundary-pushing sessions, and my body for the most part cooperated stupendously. But the past several months have been filled with mystery ailments, and an uncooperative body. Such events have played on my psyche and have caused me to question whether I should continue. Though I question if I should continue, I know the answer is yes, because stopping is not really a choice; I love sport and I love training, I absolutely need it. Right now, it's not a matter of stopping, but more of a matter of redefining. I need to redefine what my current body can do. I've been reading some good stuff in helping me gain better perspective, and I just want to share some of the articles just in case you are in a similar situation:

http://www.succeedscaps.com/endocrine.html

http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/kidney.html

http://laurengroves.blogspot.com/2012/01/fresh-start.html

And as I was sitting at home on a Saturday, when I would normally be out training, I was getting a bit depressed and turned on the radio and I know it's cheezy, but this song set my head right again.

4 comments:

Michelle Simmons said...

Interesting articles! I'd read that first one on endocrine fatigue before but the kidney failure one was an eye opener! YIKES! It does sound like maybe you have some endocrine fatigue (though I am no doctor so what do I know??)... You'll have to be fairly patient coming back from that if it is indeed the case. Hope your doc is a good one and can help you figure it out!

Steve said...

Sorry to hear this. I knoW from someone so commited to training as you, this is no good... Not to mention. Scary.

Keep us posted.

mtanner said...

Please take care of yourself and heed the warning signs. Talk to my husband about chronic fatigue. He still has it! In the meantime- I am pulling for you to figure it out. Come down to Monterey for a little vacay?

GoBigGreen said...

It could be a chronic UTI if it is persistent like that. I am glad you are getting it checked out. I hope you can enjoy the down time, knowing its january. I think Monterey is nice! I would invite you to MN but that would not be ideal bc its cold and snowy!