Silly Girl

I have no excuse for what I am about to tell you.  I honestly could kick myself.  You may recall the iron deficiency issue I had back in IMC training.  In fact, just in the last 6 weeks, I have had two different people tell me that they think of me and that issue when coaching women, and make sure they are tested for their ferritin levels.  Yes, I realize now this was the universe's way of telling me to 'CLUE IN'.  "Hello!  McFly!!!" (knock on head)

I knew that something was off.  My training was going along pretty well.  I was making good improvements, and even shocking myself a few times at what I was able to do.  Then all of a sudden, my power started dropping a bit, and I was super tired all the time.  The recognition problem is that isn't all that much out of the ordinary, and I attributed it to just the result of getting back to regular training.  Then I started to feel like shit after every workout.  And you know, once in a while that's normal, but every workout IS NOT NORMAL.  I suspected my iron levels were low again.

I went and got a blood test, and found out last week, sure enough, ferritin is way down.  Back in IMC training, my levels were at 20, which was way low.  Anything under 50 is considered not great.  My levels right now are at 12.  Oops.  Well Hello!!!  No wonder I feel like shit and can't pull in the power numbers I was pulling only 6 weeks ago.  Not to mention every time I stand up I get a major head rush, and have no energy.

So, I am back on supplements.  (I know I should have been on them all along).  No infusion for me this time - I don't think I have enough time to do it, and this is not a key race for me, so it will be what it will be.  As Janet pointed out - at least I am not finding out smack in the middle of IM training.  I am finding out now while I can still seriously do something about it before we get to that.  So as soon as I am back from the race, I will be looking into what the heck is causing my iron to be continually low.  I think it's time to see a naturopath.  I've got the whole winter to get this under control before the heavy training load comes back into play.

Let this be a gentle reminder to all you women out there - make sure you are regularly checking your ferritin levels.  Recall that ferritin is the protein that stores iron for later use - low levels indicate a deficiency and may mean you are anemic.  Take Vitamin C with your iron supplement, as this helps increase the absorption rate.  And I've just read that Yellow Dock - an herb - is a good source of iron and a great companion to iron supplements, given its mild laxative effect.  The root can be brewed into a tea which extracts all of the nutritional and medicinal properties.  So I guess I'm off to Whole Foods to pick some of that up too!

Happy Training, and eat your spinach!
Kat