medal monday
OK it’s Tuesday but, the sentiment is there, and I was just too exhausted yesterday from a crazy busy weekend to get my thoughts together on the correct day. ANYWAY, this is a special edition of medal monday because it’s more than a single medal that is meaningful here. it’s a culmination, and also a beginning …
let’s back up to january 2023...
i was a few weeks into training for boston, feeling great, workouts going well, etc. etc. and then, mid-run, i couldn’t run … my foot hurt so much that i couldn’t take a normal stride, and i couldn’t adjust my foot strike in any way that made it bearable. i walked the last half mile back to my car, devastated and panicking, because i was pretty sure what this was (a stress fracture). fortunately, i was able to get an MRI that day, got the results only a few hours later, and had confirmation of 2-3 stress reactions (no visible fracture line woohoo!) in my foot. contrary to my 2014 stress fractures (2 visible fractures, same foot, different bones), i had a better course of treatment this time around. i was not tossing boston out the window yet. and as it turned out, i didn’t need to — i was able to manage much better this time emotionally & physically, get on the alter-G treadmill at a fellow PT’s clinic, swim, bike, lift, and eventually run. i got in one long-ish run (i think about 16 miles?) a couple weeks before boston, went in with the intent of just having a great time and assuming i’d run/walk about 4:30. well i ran the whole darn thing, finished in 3:43 (only 5 min. slower than my previous slowest), and had no issues with my foot during or after! WIN!
boston marathon 2023 finish line!!
spring 2023:
now that i was back to running my normal distances, i felt like i could start to actually train again. but unfortunately, my workouts and races didn’t get any easier or faster. in fact, they were getting harder. how was this possible? i ran the charlton 5k about 6 weeks after boston, over 21:00, and it felt so. darn. hard. i was physically struggling, my achilles was killing me the rest of the day, i had run so slow (compared to my norm, or even almost-norm), and it felt awful. at this point, i felt something was off with my whole system. i had noticed for several weeks that i was having trouble eating breakfast — would eat half of my oatmeal then feel nauseated for an hour; or would eat my entire breakfast but feel hungry about 30 minutes later. i felt slowed down, constantly tired despite sleeping 8-9+ hours a night, couldn’t run fast or hard or long, and then i learned i had gained about 10 pounds since my last physical & a total of almost 20 in the last 2 years. (side note: the number on the scale is not significant on its own, but in this case it meant something — there were a whole bunch of things that were not right, and my weight was just one component).
summer 2023:
over the next several months, i spent a ton of time and money trying to figure out what was going on. my first couple of visits were with my primary care office, then i moved on to the Stram Center to dive (much!) deeper. blood work, blood work, urinalysis, stool samples, more blood work … there were a few things that came up that needed to be addressed but nothing was giving us the “aha!” moment that explained the whole situation. finally, we found a source: mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are toxic compounds that are released by certain types of mold — so it wasn’t exactly a “mold allergy”, but rather a build-up in my body of the compounds that some molds release. the two mycotoxins that were really high in my system are found in warm, humid environments (i.e., bathrooms…typical) and peanut butter which, if you know me, i consume like there is no tomorrow. ok, that makes sense. AND these two types affect the mitochondria (aka the “powerhouse” of the cell that produce energy through aerobic respiration) — explains why running felt so hard and i was tired.
post-boilermaker: not functioning, and very sad :(
summer racing was pretty much a bust. i ran 3 half marathons: “hard as hell” (which is super super hilly and, obviously, hard) in about 2:00. “run 4 the river” in just under 1:40 and it felt incredibly hard, even on a very forgiving course. ouch. then a week later, the old forge half with alex, about a minute faster than R4TR on a much harder course, and i beat alex by just a little bit. slightly encouraging, but still slow. time to shut it down and take care of my body. i also ran the boilermaker in one of my slowest 15K times ever, felt so sick before that i couldn’t eat, and sick after that i made alex pull over on the highway! and there was a cross country race that sent my heart rate through the roof from the start, i walked a lot, i felt so slow, and i ran almost as slow as i had run 5-weeks postpartum but it felt harder!
me & alex after the old forge “moose” half
and then began the treatment. it started with a bunch of foods that i couldn’t eat, including peanut butter :( also wine, cider, and some other things that i didn’t normally eat anyway. the detox protocol included a ton of supplements, at specific times of the day, and adding some foods to my meals like flax seed & spices to help with “binding” the toxins to then get eliminated from my body. within a couple weeks i was feeling more energetic, running felt a little easier, and i started to lose that sluggish/slowed-down/heavy feeling. PROGRESS. (there is more to this part but it’s less relevant to the story so i’m going to move on)…
winter/spring 2024:
heading to the finish of syracuse half 2024 (note the snow on the roads, the day after the crazy snow/sleet/hail/rain storm!)
seeing the light at the end of the tunnel growing brighter and bigger, i was able to start stringing together some good training. my fitness was still really low, but it was getting better and i was feeling more encouraged about the whole process. my 5k was still over 21:00 come march but i was not struggling as much as i was the summer before. i ran the syracuse half in march and felt amazing — it was a couple minutes faster than the fall (1:36ish on a very cold day, with partially snow-covered roads) but the race just felt fun, running felt good again.
training continued. i was able to do workouts that i hadn’t even attempted in a year or two because i was afraid of how they’d go, knowing that i felt so crummy. in this time, it was really hard to not compare myself to the previous years when i was fit, fast & strong — i wasn’t there yet, and that wasn’t a fair comparison. i just kept plugging along. i ran miles on the mohawk on a hot day in about the same pace i had run at syracuse half; again, felt really good about how i ran the race and that it didn’t defeat me!
and finally, charlton 5K 2024!
so as you see, winning the women’s race at the charlton 5k wasn’t just a “hey this is fun!” type of thing. it is the culmination of all of the work i’ve put in over the last year+ to get me here. it is a resurgence and a reignition of my spark and love for running, training and competing. i had to fight for this win — the pie! — by holding off two of my high school athletes at different points in the race. for me, winning charlton wasn’t just about breaking the tape or taking home the pie (although those are certainly fun!), but more about the journey that has gotten me from this race last year to this year. i estimate i lost about 4-5 years worth of fitness through all of this, but i’m hopeful it will take less than that to rebuild it!! whatever it takes, i know i’m in a much better place now — physically & mentally — than at this time last year. i’m trying not to compare workouts of “then & now” but rather remind myself that this is where i’m at right now and it’s better than it was.
about to break the tape at charlton 2024!
now what?
i’ve now committed to running a sub-3 hour marathon (someday!), running 10 miles a day over the summer (the specifics of this are yet to be determined but it’s not summer yet!), and getting myself back to a place where i feel ready to attempt PRs. will PRs ever happen? i hope so, but i really have no idea. once i turn 40 (which is still 5 years away!), i get to reset and build up my masters PRs so that will be a fun new exploration. i have a treatment plan for any flare-ups, i have a few supplements that will continue pretty much indefinitely — and i’m ok with that. with the help of my team at Stram, i was able to get myself figured out, reset my system, and go full steam toward what fuels me: running.
this is just my story but if you are experiencing anything similar or what seems out of whack for you, investigate it — and don’t stop until you have an answer.
and for anyone who is wondering: YES i can eat peanut butter now. there are a few brands that go through third-party testing for the presence of mycotoxins: Maranatha (this one is creamy like Skippy/Jif), and Once Again (made in Nunda, NY, and textured more like Teddie’s). not everyone is sensitive to mycotoxins/mold. emma & alex have been seemingly unaffected to this point, and we live in the same house & eat the same foods.
