Fighting with my brain, a summer cold and unexpected pains

Coming back from the race weekend, I wasn't feeling eager to go back to training at all. It doesn't help that work is draining me emotionally as well so by the evening I am a huge mess. Case in point, on Monday I went to my Taekwondo class and right off the bat my instructor asked me why I didn't come to the belt grading. Not giving me a chance to answer, I spent the rest of the class with tears in my eyes, as the negative thoughts took over. I was convinced that he thought I was a coward and knowing this wasn't true, I could not shake off the feeling of having been misunderstood. We went through all our patterns and I had a very hard time concentrating and I kept making mistakes. At the end of the class I burst in tears and I had to talk about it with the instructor. Of course, it was all in my head, as usual - but anxiety had reached its peak and I had to fight a panic attack and the shame of losing my shit in front of a bunch of kids. Not pretty.

In the following two days it went from bad to worse. On Tuesday I fell sick with a cold and my tooth ache came back. On Wednesday I started two more medications and the cocktail made me dizzy and nauseous. I also got my period and in my infinite wisdom, I decided to go back to Taekwondo. We started the class with conditioning (insert sprints, lunges, frog leaps etc), followed by a gazillion side piercing kicks. Let's say that I did my best, but by the end of the class I was surprised that I had not passed out.

On Thursday I went swimming with the tri club at Professor's Lake and fought the chop for 2 loops then called it a night. I didn't want to make my cold worse since Friday morning I was going to meet with a bunch of friends for a Canada Day bike ride. Since sleeping hadn't been that great the entire week, I was definitely feeling tired and the weekend had not even started. I was not looking forward to the 5:30am alarm clock, and as a matter of fact, I even procrastinated getting out of bed and ended being late.

I met with Emma, Sam, Kim and Ivanka in Burlington after a 40 minutes drive for which I was ill prepared. I had to find my helmet, shoes, gloves, bottles, shades and put everything in the car along with the bike. Thankfully Zin had inflated my tires. Alas there was no coffee and I ran out of time to pick one from Tim Hortons. Once again, I started the day in a state of panic.

To add insult to injury, 15 minutes within the group ride it started pouring. And it pretty much did not stop for most of the ride. We were soon soaked to the bone, but tried keeping the spirits high.

About 30km in the ride Sam got a flat and I wiped out in slo-mo because my shoe refused to unclip while trying to stop. With a bloody knee and achy wrist, I helped Sam change the tube because she was shivering so hard, poor cookie. I even inflated my first tube ever because I never got a flat myself in 5 years and this was my first application in the field. ;-) I don't remember how many f-bombs I let out during the operation, but I think I broke a personal record.

For the next 25km all I could think of was a hot Mocha at the Starbucks where we parked our cars and a warm change of clothes. I am glad to report that both were a success. All in all, despite the super soaker and bruised bum, it was a lot of fun.

The next morning, another early alarm going off, but this time for a swim with Sam at the quarry. She'd never come to Caledon for a swim there and I promised to go with her the weekend before. Summer cold and achy limbs don't care, the premise of a breakfast with this girl was a good enough reason to jump in the water at 7am. The air was cold, but the water was super warm, so the swim was rather awesome. I did two loops for a distance of 2.2km in just about 50 minutes, then drove down the road to the Red Onion where Zin joined us for brekkie.

I spent the rest of the day/weekend on the couch, nursing my stubborn cold and praying for my tooth ache to leave me in peace until Tuesday when I'll have the tooth extracted. The cat was the best and kept me company. I hope I didn't give him my cold, because we snuggled pretty long and hard.

What else is left to say? On Sunday evening I was really craving a run, so I went out for a 5km around the block in my Hokas. No knee pain, but geez - that felt hard! I tried running "easy" but the heart wouldn't have it any other way but in Z4-Z5. Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself how badly out of shape I am. And I'm still sick, which most likely plays a role as well. Let's see what the next week will bring. I think I'll need a lot of exercise to chase all demons away, if not I may just end up punching someone in the office and that's not going to end up well.

IT hurts

Every time I come out of a crisis, I feel completely lost about how and what to write here. Should I talk about it, should I just brush over the subject, or completely ignore it? IT. The monster living inside my head that takes over my thoughts and chews my brain, inch by inch until it feels about to explode. It's hard to explain if you've never been inside my brain. It hurts, a lot. It hurts my head, it hurts my body, it's rather unbearable the way I feel trapped inside a very tiny room with white walls. I can only make one step in each direction before I start to panic, over ventilating, heart beating out of my chest, in full panic mode. There is no way out, the pressure on my chest, the claustrophobic feeling triggered by the overwhelming amount of thoughts that keep bouncing inside my head. Many times I think there is no way out. It's just a matter of when I am going to lose the fight.

I start folding the laundry. It keeps my hands busy. It keeps me in a state of usefulness. The 3 baskets of clothes have been waiting for me for 2 weeks, but I ignored them. With more clothes added to the pile, the less adequate I feel for the task at hand. I manage to put away 1 basket and a half. But one hour from now, another one will take its place. It always feels like a sisyphean task. And predictably enough, I start crying again. Two hours of crying is quite a workout. Some days, it's all I can do for my family as I leave most of my energy at the office. I live in a constant state of mental drain. If it makes sense, I dream of a brain battery that I can recharge on the spot, like a robot.

Physically, there is a long way to being active to the point where I don't hate myself. I usually feel active enough to work out, but looking in the mirror is always hard. I miss the days when I had the energy to move mountains and I was not broken both mentally and physically. The month so far has been like a long walk through a swamp. Not only I did a lot of physio workouts, but those didn't get me outside of the house enough. This week I tried putting a little spin on my workdays so to speak, by biking to work and back. I've always been fearful of the drivers in my city, they are rather... intense. I made it 2 days back and forth and I didn't die. Now that was surprising. Each ride took just a little under 30min, and overall I enjoyed them. Which means that for the first time in a long time, I biked 3 times this week. And I smiled every single time.

It gives me hope to see these smiles. If I can be outside, if I can focus on things that bring me joy, I feel safe. I may be the least safe on the road, dodging cars and potholes, but being alone with my thoughts is certainly more dangerous.

I also had company this weekend. My friend Carol spent 2 days at my place with her boyfriend. She is training for the mighty Ironman Muskoka and she went on her longest ride ever yesterday with my hubbs and 2 other friends of ours. I couldn't go because I'm not fit to ride over 100km and I already go against my doctor's orders every weekend with the rides that I lead for my tri club. This picture that we took just after a long and gorgeous descent today, reminded me of our best times on the road, training for our first 70.3, two years ago.

In two weeks from now we'll be returning to Muskoka for a training weekend with the club, but once again I won't be allowed to ride long. I'll have to find a lot of mental tricks to stay present. Ideas are welcome... At least my boys will be with me and maybe they will be willing to spend some quality time with their mom instead of staring into their phones.

This post is bouncing all over the place and I'm not sure where to go from here. So maybe I'll just talk about today. It was our club's first race simulation day event, where we swam, biked and ran, just like in a race. We even had transition racks hand made by Zin.

With 16 people in attendance, it sure was a very successful event. We swam in circles for a while, simulating open water swimming, and that was a lot of fun.

Then we went on the bike ride and I chose to lead the 40km group. Other people, more speedy than me chose to go on their own, others did the 55km loop or the 20km one. To each their goals. I have no goals other than staying outside of the dark corners of  my brain.

I found the same uphills and downhills that I've been enjoying in the past few years, but traveling across these roads is always a new adventure. You never know what your legs are capable of. Today, it took mine more than 20km to go from wet noodles to pistons. I made it back with a big grin on my face, then I finished with a run. My longest run this year, 5km, wow. It took me 34min, between walking up the hills, taking pictures of other runners in the group and stopping to smell the lilacs.

My knees started to hurt at 4km, but I ran/walked the last km and made it back in transition where I scarfed down a few pieces of watermelon because it was the best ever. Then I went home, ordered food for lunch and collapsed in the couch with a beer. I am hoping that it refueled me enough to reach the end of another week without banging my head against (invisible) walls.

And since this is a long weekend, tomorrow I'll be riding with friends again, but this time from Burlington. I love me a slice of Escarpement, but I may not be able to keep up with Emma, who just finished the 8 Days in California Trainer Road Challenge. Read all about it here. She has become a beast on the bike... but maybe, just maybe she will be tired enough so we can chat in between hills.

What else? I don't feel like going into too many details of the last weeks worth of workouts. I reached 7h of workouts/week, with the help of bike commutes and picking the garbage on the side of the road at the semi-annual Adopt-a-Road club event. The physio focus is still there, but not as intense. I forget to stretch throughout the day, but I foam roll more often than before. I have made great progress in strength and agility and the physiotherapist seems rather happy with me, but I haven't seen a major difference in my knee pain just yet. Trying to stay patient. And remember to stretch. If you feel inclined to see how I filled in my weeks, here's a Training Peaks snapshot.

As for the state of my mind, one day at a time... it's all I can do. I know that most of you, for not knowing my past, assume that I am still dealing with the Ironman blues, or that I got depressed for not being able to run, or because I am not losing weight, or some other vain trait. Before I end this post, I wanted to tell you that this isn't the case. Why do I feel the need to justify myself? Because of articles like these which are hard to avoid nowadays. You see a lot of smiles on this blog, but I have plenty of pictures crying as well. The smiling pictures help me go back to those moments of joy. The sad ones have their purpose too, but I don't feel like bringing other people down with publishing them. I have been depressed for over a decade. Running and exercise just helps me cope with it. For the rest, there is no magic wand or snapping out of it. IT just is.

One week you're the hammer, another week you're the nail

Strange, strange days. Two weeks ago I was all about ramping back up my bike workouts and increasing my run frequency, but things just didn't turn out that way. I had a relatively good first training week, starting with Hot Yoga on Monday, then the 3 scheduled workouts as part of the Base Building Training Road program, which I pretty much aced, for once. See all details here if you are inclined to read wattage and heart rate and all that cool stuff.

The runs, however, just went downhill from there. The first one, on Wednesday was actually pretty good, I managed to run without pain for 27min non stop, a whooping 4km! I was hopeful to say the least. On Sunday, however, I only managed 2.5km, about 15min of running, until the knee pain came back. I decided to walk back home, but it was so damn cold that I called Zin to pick me up, then we drove straight to Tim Hortons for a tea. I took this picture just seconds before I jumped in the car.

Despite the sucky knee letdown, I was still in good spirits.

Last run was this week on Thursday, after spending most of the day crying and unable to deal with anxiety attacks. I had to come home at lunch time because I was not able to talk to people face to face without an emotional breakdown. At some point I even considered calling Zin to pick me up because I was afraid of driving by myself. I feel very vulnerable posting this picture but I know it helped me process my feelings, like looking from the outside in, if it can make sense. Seeing myself in distress makes my brain think more rationally and helps me detach from it (to each their own, I guess).

So anyway, I managed to keep my mind busy that day, working from home and arguing with people on the phone, which has become rather the norm lately. Then in the evening I went out for a run, but had to start walking again after 25min because of the same dreaded knee pain. These runs have become rather predictable.

And that's it. No other workouts. An insane amount of work made me too exhausted to move a single limb. On Tuesday, I made it home at 2am, completing my longest work day ever, 16h non stop. Part of me is telling myself that it's not worth to jeopardize my health for my career, but truth is, most days it bring me a lot of satisfaction for a job well done. After quite a few years of being treated like crap, my job is appreciated and I feel that I am making a difference. This too shall pass, right?

That day I also quit the nutrition program which I was following since January. While I completely agree with its teachings and I know that it works well for others, I could not get myself to remove enough sweets and treats from my diet, which would be the key to my weight loss. They are a coping mechanism and since I am not taking any medication for my depression and anxiety, I cannot afford removing them right now. Not losing any weight and seeing others being successful at it had also become an additional source of stress, so I preferred to detach myself from the other participants in the program and focus on what I can control.

In a move that can be seen as self-sabotaging, Zin and I went to Erin on Saturday to visit Holtom's Bakery where we bought a few sweets for the entire family and some amazing bread. I only had one butter tart and a scone, and I have been fighting with my will power since. But it was "good for the soul" after such a miserable week and I realize that we are healing ourselves with food, but we have no time for psychotherapy.

Then we went on a little drive on our favorite summer biking routes, and stopped by the Cheltenham Badlands for a quick dose of fresh air.

I see a few tentative smiles, so things are looking up!

Today was Around the Bay 30K race. I missed this race last year because I was training for the Ironman and my coach thought it would be a bad idea to put such a high mileage on my legs at that point in time. This year I had a bib for the 15K relay, but I had to give it up. Since I barely can run 4km, it would not have been very wise. But Zin was racing it and I could not miss the opportunity to see how the day would unfold for him, and for many of my Daily Mile friends.

2:12:50 later, Zin crossed the finish line spent, but he achieved his goal of getting a silver medal in the oldest race in North America, given to all men participants who finished between 2h and 2h15. Those who finished under 2h received a gold medal. Last year he missed it by 3 minutes, so it was a sweet victory to come in with more than 2min to spare.

I am so proud of him!! He continues to inspire me every single day with his perseverance and desire to better himself in his athletic endeavors, as well as trying to be the best hubby a woman could wish for. And I am also proud of the friendships that I made over the years thanks to running, and to Around the Bay. This race started it all, so it's only logical that it became my favorite. Thank you my friends, you know who you are!!

Maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit

As I wait for the year to end, with a mix of trepidation and dreariness, I try to gather my thoughts before they blow up like fireworks. It's been a hell of a month, and I chose to stay away from this empty page where words would have collided and bounced between invisible walls, not padded enough to slow them down. There are days that I am so much, even for myself. An ongoing struggle, but still alive. But this too shall pass, and I may be finally ready to put my foot down and say Enough.

However this is a fitness related blog and the musings of my troubled noggin are for my therapist instead. I haven't seen one in 5 years, but I may need to go back for a reboot of sorts. We shall see... for now I am still putting all my hopes into the running therapy that I should be able to start again on January 1st.

Speaking of which, there is a slight chance that does not happen, and I am not trying to be pessimistic for no reason, but my body decided to give me one more challenge just because it can. On Dec 26, also the day of my 17th wedding anniversary, I decided to brave the crowds and go to Yorkdale Mall for a trip to Lululemon to spend a gift card that one of my friends had bought for me earlier this year. The trip was somewhat successful, in the fact that I spent out of my pocket only $75 bucks, between one new Scuba Hoodie and a onesie from Bluenotes. A what? Yes, you heard me right - a onesie. Or a cowsie to be more precise.

I came back home, changed into my new outfit, had lunch and selfied with hubbs for the official anniversary photo. So far so good.

Then I sat down and watched a movie... and out of the blue, an hour or two later, my ankle started hurting like mad. I could not put the foot down, ouch ouch ouch, and I kept limping around for the rest of the day. I can only take a guess about what happened... maybe something in my foot got a cramp from driving around, or maybe I got off the couch on the wrong foot so to speak, or there was an evil intervention, whatever. It just happened. I iced, I elevated, took Ibuprofen... Still limping 3 days later. Of course it didn't help that I walked 5km on it on Saturday, but I had no choice, I had promised to take my family downtown to see the pretty Chrismas lights. Now it seems to be getting better for sure, but it's a slooooooow process. #FML.

Let's see what else happened since the last time I dumped my thoughts on this blog...

-Strength training has been going OK, and I know that I am getting stronger, but my butt cheeks and arms are also getting bigger. I have been having a hard time to find pants and shirts that fit. I try to fit in at least 2 to 3 sessions of 30min strength training a week.

-Weight has also been going steadily up and once I reached 145lb I hit the PANIC button and signed up for nutrition coaching with the lovely Georgie Fear, whose book "The Racing Weight Cookbook" has been an eye opener that you don't need a Whole 30-Paleo-no sugar-high fat-low carb diet to be happy and lose weight. All you need is good, healthy, sustainable habits for the rest of your life. Official program starts on Jan 5, but I have been enjoying a few 1:1 free coaching weeks with Brandice for now. It's been great. I already mastered the habit of having veggies with both lunch and dinner and now I am working on a habit of having at least 20-30g of protein with every breakfast. Go me!!

-Biking has been going well too, with 1-2 sessions of 1.5h a week of pretty hard trainer workouts, either with the triathlon club or with Trainer Road in my Pain Cave. Not much to report, but I feel that I could bump up my FTP again... Will wait until the heart rate goes down again though... still not liking to do my VO2max intervals around 190bpm. If you are curious, check out my TR Career page.

-Swimming... well, it's there, when I find the motivation to go. I've been going religiously every Sunday morning at 7am with the club for 1h, but Tuesday nights have been rather hit and miss. It doesn't help that my new job drains me of every ounce of energy that I have, but that's what I get for being a bigger boss. Not complaining, nope nope nope.

-I also go for walks whenever I can to let my thoughts breathe... Inhale. Exhale. Keep it Zen, shake it out, don't let the screws get too lose. Or something like that. I even meditated once, but thankfully I was in my bed when that happened.

What else??

I finally got to try Osmo Nutrition, after hearing the glowing reviews from all over the Interwebz. Unfortunately I could not use the Acute Recovery formula because it's based on milk protein (damn you dairy allergy!), but the Preload and Active Hydration have been doing the trick! Most surprising has been the Active Hydration mix - I thought that I would hate the Mango taste, but it's actually very light and I even liked it, whereas the Preload has more of an acquired taste even though it was supposed to be more familiar.

We'll see how it goes, but I don't have any concerns for now about the product. Most likely I will write a more detailed review once I finish the containers. ;-)

Another notable bit of news is that I made the Coeur Ambassador Team again this year. My jaw just about dropped when I saw the news. I've always considered myself an underdog, and I probably won't have the answer as to "why me", but it made me very very happy and I could not be more grateful to Kebby and Hailey for trusting me to spread my #heartandcourage around. I am looking forward to sharing the Coeur colors with my friend Carol who also made the team. Two crazy Canucks rocking the #stylishspeed hashtag, watch out world.

With this update, my friends, and to quote the lovely and talented Allie Brosh, maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit after all.

I have a few challenging races lined up for the 2015 season, rockstar friends who continue to fill my life with sweaty smiles and good cheer, I am working with people who I fully trust to make me stronger, faster, leaner - and have a successful comeback to all things source of endorphins. I have the most amazing husband and kids, a new and challenging career, and enough gear to last me a few good years. It can only go up from here. Yippee ki yay, motherf*ers.

Adventures in food

So it's been exactly 3 weeks since I've started making changes to my diet. As a reminder, the exercise was to restrict the sugar, carbs, grains and dairy I would eat after lunch, while still not going overboard in these categories with the rest of the meals. The end goal was to increase my intake of daily fruits, veggies and protein and reduce the rest because I'd have less options for snacks and dinner. I've kept a strict diary of everything that went into my mouth during these three weeks, you can see it here if you're curious. I haven't gone Paleo overnight, far from it, but I tried to inspire my cooking from it. I even bought a book of Paleo recipes and started collecting ideas from websites I've come across and that have been recommended by friends who are in the process of doing the Whole30 challenge, more or less ad infinitum.

And it's been challenging, not only because it made me go out of my comfort zone and forced me to learn how to cook, but because it removed some of my coping mechanisms. It is no secret that I've been having quite an emotional attachment to food, because it's been making me feel good. I love everything about comfort food, but I am convinced that in quantities larger than my body can handle, all this "comfort" ends up making me sick. It's a vicious circle and it's been interesting to see how I can cope without giving into little daily cravings. And the answer is, I'm not so sure. If you haven't read my previous post, it looks like I'm struggling with short episodes of depression that keep poking at me every so often. I am thinking that reducing both exercise and comfort food, my most trusted therapies, I let some of that depression coming back to haunt me. But don't be alarmed, it's really not that bad. I feel that as soon as I'll go back to my 10h+ of training, all these issues are going to take care of themselves.

Now, weight wise, I don't think I've lost much, maybe 3lb so far. I would need to lose 2 more lb in order to win my Diet Bet, but I won't make a scene if I don't. I think I have given myself a good routine and eventually the weight is going to come off, especially if I increase the amount of exercise. Anyway - 3 weeks later, I don't feel magically "better", I didn't get any epiphany related to food either, but I feel stronger with regards to cravings and I am happy that I've started to cook more and make better choices at least half of the day. It's a move in the right direction for sure.

Below is a compilation of meals I had in the last 20 days:

I am going to keep on eating this way, I don't see a reason to stop - it's totally manageable and I believe that health wise, it can only be good for me. And once a month, just like I did today, I will allow myself to indulge in a favorite dessert. This month, it was chocolate mint ice cream at Demetre's. But of course. It was as awesome as I could remember it.

And now, reset. Bring it on, December!!