Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Buns of Steel

Well, I finally had it done. After a few blood tests and a trial of taking iron tablets with these not making much of a difference (ferritin went up from 35 to 37), I have embarked on a 5 week course of iron injections into my posterior. I have really struggled with the heat this summer, and the theory is that low iron is why. As soon as the temperature drops my energy levels soar. With any luck improved iron levels will help my performance as well. I'm not really expecting it to, but it would be pretty cool if this happened!

Yesterday I did a couple of 6 km recovery runs, one in the morning and one in the evening, HR 137 and 132 respectively, the second run 2 sec/k faster. Felt fatigued but not too bad. This double recovery run worked well for me after the Mona weekend so I used it again.

This morning I ran from the house along the river to Rossmoyne and back, for 13.44km @4:27 pace, HR151. My breathing felt a little tight today and I had a bit of all-over fatigue but I wanted to run for about an hour because it’s a while since I’ve done that! I felt better as the run progressed – I came back about 2 minutes quicker than I went out. It was a nice cool morning for it, it’s a shame my weekend caught up with me on this one, but it was going to happen sooner or later !

In some good news, Team Strands consisting of Simons Ward and Elliot and myself, won the open team award for the 10km Bridges run with an aggregate time of 1:38:32 – which makes Simon Ward and myself back-to-back winners of this award. A tradition we should try to continue !

5 comments:

Epi said...

Hmmm...

Be careful with the iron injections - they hurt and can leave a tattoo!

DC64 said...

I got lucky : no pain, and no stain (so far). I felt I had to do something to arrest the steady decline in my Fe levels. I had a long talk with my GP and decided that I do have gut absorbtion issues ( low B12 as well ), so this was worth a try. Apart from the dull ache for 30 minutes afterwards, I had no pain at all, no soreness this morning. I had more muscle pain from the flu jab.

CharisK said...

If that terrifying pollie Abbott is the Iron Monk, does that make you the Iron Cheek, and next week do you have to turn the other one ? :)

trailblazer777 said...

not sure if this will help, but I remember learning in sports nutrition unit at Edith Cowan Joondalup Sports Science that Vitamin C (i.e. fruits, fruit juice, especially blackcurrant juice) is the key to iron absorption. Endurance athletes often have high iron needs. I took some kind of iron tablet for a year or so in my teens. Silver beet is very high in iron I think, and I think Sustagen is too. Congratulations on the team Strands win, the Masters medals, and thanks for the excellent 40 miler photos!

trailblazer777 said...

All the best with the New York Plans too!
from what I have heard from 1 or 2 others I know of who have done it, thats an experience of a lifetime!