No Whinging

Okay I think my last post was a bit of an 'Oh woe is me', so time to look on the positive side.

At this stage G still thinks I am doing the half in Sydney so I won't bother to discuss it any further with him until I am sure. Maybe I should do it just for more race experience...

Last week was a better one exercise-wise. I am still running pretty slowly but I didn't have any real shockers. I got in plenty of walks as G's sister and her 4 boys were up from Canberra (and 6 boys under the age of fifteen need plenty of exercise)

Monday:6k run (39.15 HR 155)
Tuesday: 13k walk (3 ks with Pip, 5 ks up beach & 5 ks over the headland with boys)
Wednesday: 7k run (47.28 HR 157)
Thursday: 5k walk
Friday: 10k run (1.10.13 HR 158) & 6k walk over to Middle Head and back
Saturday: 5k walk
Sunday: 6k run (low heart rate run on creek flat 44.18 HR 148)

Back to work this week but at least the days are a little longer now which helps with squeezing in the afternoon runs.

Giddy

That's how I'm feeling a lot of the time at the moment. I went back to the specialist and she confirmed that I don't have coeliac (good news), however I do have a chronically inflamed stomach with lots of little ulcers(not so good news) which the pathologist believes may be a result of the thyroid medication. She has put me on some medication which has several unpleasant side effects including headaches and nausea. As a result my running has been pretty slow this week. I have been getting out there but not really achieving what I would like to do.

Monday was an attempt to do some hills/speedwork where I tried to run hard up the smaller hills. This was okay (I think the nausea was better then) but for the total 8ks my time was very average. Then an easy and very slow run on Wednesday - 8ks at about 7 min pace. Friday was a long run (as I'm on holidays) but I think that my stomach was still too full from lunch (even though I waited 2 hours) and I felt really bleugh and had to walk up the short side of Killer Hill and then do 1 minute run/2 minutes walk up the long side. The average pace for this 10k run was about 7 1/2 minutes and I was exhausted when I got back.

So, at this stage the idea of doing the Blackmores Half is not looking good. I do not want to do it if I cannot attempt going under 2 hours as it is a big inconvenience to my family for us or me to go to Sydney and I would want to at least give it a good crack.

Fortunately I am only on the strong dose of this medication for another week or so then reduce to half that for another 4 weeks. I am also going back to the GP to check my thyroid levels in about 3 weeks and then probably attempting to go off the thyroids meds altogether (with the possibility that I may have to have radioactive iodine to kill off the thyroid if the Graves hasn't gone into remission).

So basically I am just grateful to 'get out there' at the moment and think that the best plan is just to enjoy the running without specific goals for the time being and see what happens over the next month. I should know a bit more by the start of August and can make a definite decision then.