Running block

[KnottedYet]

One last warning...watch out for anemia. Distance training in particular can prompt this response in some women, and adding the running to your bike schedule can throw your body for a loop trying to keep up.

Oh my goodness! I cannot second this enough!

I was training for a half marathon (and not dieting in ANY way) and things were going great. Then suddenly I didn't want to run, I was crying all the time, incredibly tired, cold, and just miserable. I couldn't believe I was so lazy! I stopped training, I was sleeping during my lunch breaks, I'd have to take a nap before I could cook dinner. It was awful.

Finally (after much prompting from everyone around me) I went to the doc. Turned out I was anemic and my Vit D was extraordinarily low.

Within 2 weeks of starting a program of massive iron and vit D intake, I felt like a new woman! Eventually I was able to taper down my iron, but I still have to take huge amounts of Vit D just to be barely above the "deficient" line.

I would never have dreamed I could possibly be anemic. My diet was already chock full of iron.

[zoom-zoom]

Oh my goodness! I cannot second this enough!

I will third it! During training for one of my marathons (2nd, IIRC) I hit a week where suddenly every run was a task. It was almost like bonking. Horrible.

Someone suggested anemia and pointed me to some articles about anemia and distance running (essentially running causes some degree of blood loss in our feet and our intestines--benign, but it takes iron with it). Bingo. I have been anemic off-and-on all my life, even before I started running. The multi-vit. I was on was unisex and low in iron.

I started taking extra iron and cooking EVERYTHING in a cast iron pan and within 3 weeks was starting to come back around. Now I'm better about taking iron, in a women's multivitamin and sometimes an extra iron supplement, too.