Despite how it may appear given my lack of posting, I have actually gotten a few runs in over the past week. More slowness and frustration, but I now think I have an explanation for why my running has been so rotten lately and why I've been feeling "blah" and not my usual hyper self. I had some labs drawn last week as part of the screening for a research study I was interested in participating in, and it appears I have some iron-deficiency anemia happening--hematocrit was 32, don't remember the other numbers off the top of my head but hemoglobin, MCV and MCHC were on the low side too. That explains a lot that I had been blaming, apparently incorrectly, on "winter blahs". A hematocrit of 32 isn't terrible, but I looked back at my last one that was done at a physical two years ago and it was 45 (and I seem to remember that I had tended to be on the higher end before that as well), so it's quite a bit lower than what seems to be my general baseline. The only reason I can think of is that my dietary iron intake must have been too low lately, since I haven't had any unusual bleeding or heavier menstrual flow than usual. So, time to take iron supplements for a while to replenish the stores and hopefully I'll be pretty much back to my crazy self within a few weeks.