Running on empty...

We leave for the North Carlina mountains tomorrow morning, and not a moment too soon.  This will be the second year we've stayed at a cabin in Leicester, to the west of Asheville.  The cabin sits on some large number of acres, and has a private pond and hiking/biking trails up the mountain.  The kids and dogs can run amuck without seeing anyone or anything besides woodland creatures.  If I am so motivated, I can run mountain roads or mountain bike some seriously elevated trails.  Last year it was the perfect training spot for me to really build up for IMFL.

This year, though, I am seriously considering taking several days off, or even MOST of the days off that we are there.  I'm taking my trainer, and can water jog or swim in the pond... but I'm suffering a serious dearth of energy, which is sapping my motivation dry.  I was struggling somewhat even before the triple whammy of sick girls, crazy overbooked schedule, and unexpected blow up with the exH, but those three things occurring in quick succession pretty much cooked me physically.  Unfortunately, although I hate to admit it, my body doesn't function like other people's, and it's only through extreme
stubbornness that I train the way I do.

About six years or so ago I landed in the hospital with a suspected case of pericarditis (inflammation of the heart).  I'd been having really bizarre chest pains at random times, and they'd been getting more and more debilitating.  When I finally went to my physician, he performed an ECG (EKG?  whichever is right, lol) and immediately sent me to the hospital.  After a few days in the hospital they decided I was having all the symptoms of pericarditis, but without any sign of the actual infection.  They eventually sent me home with some muscle relaxers (?) and over time the chest pains waned and I moved forward without any clear understanding of why they'd occurred.

Two or so years later, while down at Bike Week in Daytona, I found myself experiencing a crushing headache and nausea.  I thought it might be a migraine, which I've never had before... but it continued.  After a few days, mind numbing fatigue appeared and the headache was so bad at times that I literally cried in pain.  All I wanted to do was lie in the dark with my eyes closed.  After a week of this I went to mayo and started a process of weeks of testing to determine what the hell was going on.

The first round of blood work revealed insanely out of whack liver functions, and they immediately suspected one of the hepatitis strains.  Although they must have tested three time for each strain, all tests came back negative.  Meanwhile, the headaches, fatigue, nausea, fevers, drenching night sweats etc all continued... and my liver functions steadily grew worse.   My doctor began to talk about potentially putting me on the transplant list if the functions deteriorated much further.  Both my doctor and I researched every possible cause -- parasites, random infectious diseases, various viruses... I saw the infectious disease specialist and the liver specialist at Mayo, and the medical bills mounted along with the frustration.

Throughout this process, I continued to feel like I'd been hit by a truck and/or beaten in the head repeatedly.  It was scary, but I was too sick to really be scared at the time.  Thankfully, I had a wonderful doctor who worked very diligently and closely with me to figure out what was attacking my liver and beating my body up so badly.  We ultimately reached the same conclusion at virtually the same time... the probably cause of the problems was a virus called CMV.  Sure enough, one simple blood test later (after literally several dozens of vials of blood drawn over the preceding weeks) and the diagnosis was confirmed.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cmv/DS00938 -- a good overview of CMV.

CMV usually affects people with HIV (uh, not so much...), who've had an organ transplant (yeah, ditto), or who have lowered immune systems (hmmm)...  So, to our best guess is, my immune system is somehow compromised (which we've kind of known, dating back to a miscarriage before the minis were successfully hatched) which allows the CMV to abuse me periodically.

So, what does one do for this virus that randomly attacks parts of the body, that has no cure or overly effective treatment, and that no one really knows how to prevent from flaring up again?  Absolutely nothing.  You let it run it's course and hope you are still standing when it does.

My liver eventually won the war, the fevers stopped, the headaches waned, and over the course of the next year I regained probably 80-90% of my energy level, on average.  BUT... ever since, under the right circumstances, I hit the wall and feel as if the very marrow has been sucked from my bones and I am nothing but jello.  Summonsing the energy to do the basics -- housework, laundry, grocery shop -- nevermind training, becomes a chore.  I feel like I have a perpetual case of mono.  I don't think I've had a full blown attack occur on any particular body part since the liver episode, but I also feel that, on a good day, I am operating at about 80% capacity,

When life throws unexpected curves -- extended lack of sleep, sudden emotional stress, prolonged physical or emotional drains -- an exhausted fog settles in around me.   The worst days see me just put a pillow over my head and sleep all day.  Average days see me complain about being wiped out, or tired... something I imagine my friends and husband and kids get sick of hearing.  It's the kind of tired that I can only equate to being pregnant in the first trimester... and the latter is not as bad or as tenacious as the former (and with the latter you know it is for a good cause and you'll only get more tired once you give birth to the virus, er, fetus, lol).  This is the kind of tired no caffeine, no sugar, no dogged determination can wade through.

Having a virus like CMV makes Ironman training a bit challenging sometimes.  The discernible difference between my pre-liver-battle energy level and my reality now bothers me greatly.  Some days of training feel truly like a death march.  And in the weeks before a race I find myself desperately trying to get enough sleep to stomp down the leaden feeling that dogs me more often than not.  This past week was a good example -- things went downhill until Wednesday, when I simply could not make myself get in the pool and swim the 4500 yards I had planned, or anything else for that matter and I thought my week was pretty much toast.  Thursday I woke up and forced myself onto the bike trainer and sucked it up long enough to finish, with some oooomph, a 5.5hr trainer video.  Virus 1, Sara 1 for the week.

So, off to NC we go.  When I return there will be 4 weeks or so left before IML.  I plan to do whatever training feels right next week after desperately holding on to the edge of the cliff to complete what is supposed to be a heavy week of training THIS week.   While it goes against the IM training creed, I may take the majority of the week off.  Yes, this close to the race.  I don't see much choice right now, as the battery is barely emitting enough juice to flicker the lights, and I feel like I am walking around with a huge DUH expression on my face, not unlike Sabre generally has on his, but minus the long tongue and big pointy ears.  Hopefully a week of concentrating on the family, walking and hiking in the woods, making s'mores over the fire pit, and generally trying to rest and forget about training much at all for a few days will beat back my viral buddy enough to pick it up for the last few weeks before I travel to Louisville for the privilege of dying in the 95' heat on the run course.  :-)