Thursday, January 27, 2011

Is it friday yet?

The week has been tough so far. I am in survival mode trying to get through. Last weekend I went to calgary to see my GI doctor. I have been suffering from various stomach issues since I can rememder, however, over the past two years I have had such severe stomach pain that I have had to go to the emergency room several times. After months of seeing my family doctor and feeling like I am going a little crazy, I was finally referred to a GI doctor. They poked, proded, injected, scanned, and did all the most unpleasent tests that they could do. For those of you that have never had a colonoscopy, endoscopy, or never had to drink 4 liters of barium or colite.. you are most fortuneate. Anyways, after several trips too and from calgary to get these various tests, I finally got to see my doctor for the test results. Well, thankfully I do not have a serious condition like chrones, colitis, or cancer. However, they have diagnosed me with IBS- Irritable Bowel Syndrom. A condition that should be called "we dont know what the hell is wrong with you" syndrom. In fact my brother has been diagnosed with the same thing, however our symptoms are very different. When I first met with my doctor he reassured me that even if it was IBS, we would come up with a game plan to make me feel better which left me optimistic and hopeful. Well I left his office on monday with a much different feeling. It was pretty much a waste of time. He came in told me my tests were clear (thank goodness) and that I have IBS. Then he ratteled off about how they dont know what causes it, and therefore they dont know how to treat it. He explained that they could put me on medication but he doesn't believe in medication. He told me they could do food allergy/intolerance testing but often in IBS it's not always the same foods that makes you sick. Which I could have told him. I have driven myself crazy over the last few months trying to figure out if it is any sort of food that makes me sick. Poor ben listens to my "well maybe its dairy, or maybe corn allergy, or maybe soy, or maybe gluten.. blah blah blah." But none of those things really make me consistently sick... mind you alot of them are really hard to cut out of your diet without meeting with a nutritionist. Perhaps that should be my next step, along with keeping a food diary and recording what I'm eating and how i'm feeling.

Anyways, back to leaving the doctor. I felt very conflicting emotions. Obviously glad that I do not have anything life threatening or requiring surgery. But at the same time, I was deflated. I left with no direction of how to feel better or that I was ever going to feel better. Aparently the most diagnoised GI condition is IBS, and yet there is so little information about it.

So that is how my week started. By the time I got back from calgary it was 4:30 and I was exhausted. I headed to pick Ben up from work but his work schedule has changed. He is now working 10 hour days (7am till 5:30 pm) which has disrupted our training a bit too. We only had an hour after dinner to relax and wind down before bed. But now Ben's work is cutting into that precious hour and effectively cutting it in half. Now we're not home until 7pm after the gym, eating by 7:30 and in bed by 8! not to mention going to bed on a full stomach which makes you wake up feeling disgusting. Also, I'm walking home from work now and I'm home for a half hour before ben. Just being home for that half hour between 5 and 5:30 is a challenge to our training. The last thing I want to do is go back out to the gym, instead , I just want to eat dinner and relax. And when ben comes home he is tired and hungry and definitely doesn't feel like going to the gym. Discouraged by this we have skipped a few evening workouts.. actually all of them. Which has lead to a vicious cycle of "well start fresh tomororw and we'll take tonight off." Unfortuneatly it is now Thursday, and I have only done one of the workouts I was supposed to do this week. Darn. Oh well, its not like taking a week off over 7 months before our race is going ot make it or break it for us.. hopefully.

Like I mentioned before, it has been a rough week. The weather here is definitely not helping. It has warmed up, and instead of snowing it is pouring rain. Rain ontop of 6 feet of snow makes for a very messy walk in the mornings. It is gloomy, which is not helping the mood. Not to sound like an Eore. Here's to hoping that we force ourselves to the pool tonight.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Skiing vs. Training

So we have been getting pounded with snow here in revelstoke. We had a winter storm warning from wednesday through saterday last week, and got hit with over 75cms of snow. My dad and brother were coming out for the weekend and they were stuck for nearly 9 hours on the highway because of avalanches. Now we have another snow warning today through saterday again, and it has already snowed 20cms since it started early this morning. If you're a skiier all this snow is fantastic! We skied powder all day saterday even tho the snow had tapered off by then. Since Ben and I work monday through friday, we can only get out to ski on saterday and sunday. The issue is that those are also the days of our longest workouts. Last saterday we were supposed to have a 3hr bike and a 30 minute run, and on sunday we were supposed to have a 80 minute run and 30 minute bike. We would do those workouts befor we went skiing, but there are 2 problems: 1) the gym doesn't open until 10am, so if we want to do out workouts we have to wait until then and 2) there is powder to ski!! So why don't we just go after skiing? well, for those of you that ski you will understand why we dont. After skiing all day you are tired, your legs are tired and dead,and you haven't dranken nearly any water all day so you're a little dehydrated. The last thing you feel like doing is hitting the gym. Rather you want a beer, dinner, and then to lounge on the couch before bed. Which is what we have been doing. We justify it with the fact that at least we're doing SOMETHING, i mean we're working our legs and getting our heart rates up skiing. And I think skiing is a good substitute for sitting on a spin bike for 3 horus. But i dont think it can count as running. Running is my weakest discipline, so i really need to make sure i get those long runs in. Since I have been missing them because of skiing, I tried to get it in this week by doing it on monday night after work. Well there is a reason that long runs are first thing in the morning. I was very ill after that workout. When the alarm rang at 4:30am the next morning to go back to the gym to run again, well i coulnd't do it. I had just been there not even 10 hours earlier doing a long run. I was dehydrated because I ate then went to bed and didn't have time to drink enough water to replenish the liquid i had lost. Needless to say I reset my alarm until 7pm and enjoyed the extra sleep.

So that currently is our predicament, and i know many of you are thinking "oh what a rough life they are skiing instead of training". But the joke will be on me in March when the skiing is over and I'm trying to catch up on my long bikes and runs! :S Less than 8 months till Ironmamn Canada!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Merry Christmas, here's the flu.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from both of us! I hope everyone had a great holidays! Ours were busy but it was awesome to spend some time with my family.

Over the holidays we were determined to keep our training going, even if we had to adjust it a bit to accomodate traveling and the gym being closed. We thought we had it all planned out. However, we hit our first road block on christmas eve when we arrived at the gym at 5:30 am only for it not to open.. argh. With some disappointment we drove home and finished some final packing for the weekend. I had to work 8am-12pm which went by painfully slow. Then ben picked me up and we drove straight to calgary. We got there just as people were arriving for my Dad's christmas eve party. After a great meal, a couple of drinks, and some carolling we were convinced to go to midnight mass. We did not get home until 1:15am (waaay past our bedtime) and had be up since 4:30 am so we were beat. We managed to squeeze in our run on christmas day inbetween heading to my Aunt's house and opening christmas presents (I think the new heart rate monitor that I got for christmas gave me some incentive to get out there). After dinner at my Aunts house we headed to my Mom's house for our own little christmas morning at 10pm. It turned out to be another late night, and I could feel like I was starting to get run down.

Boxing day we were planning on relaxing a bit and enjoying our last day in calgary. After a huge brunch we tried to squeeze in a bike workout. Needless to say it was pretty rough on a very full tummy. After the gym we headed to the outdoor rink for some hockey with my family which was a ton of fun. Before we knew it we were finishing another great meal and heading to bed.

We left calgary early on monday morning because there was a snow warning in revelstoke and we didn't want to get stuck on the highway. By the time we got back to revelstoke we were exhausted and missed out swim workout. I was supposed to work on tuesday, but with the snow coming I called in to get it off. So on tuesday we enjoyed a day of skiing, and I started feeling pretty lousy. We went home and I'm pretty sure ben tried to go to the gym and I just laid on the couch. In the end I caught my brother's flu and the next 3 days were pretty rough. Fever, chills, aches, stomach upset, the whole works. I had to work, but as soon as I got home I would park myself in bed. No training for me. Ben was not feeling 100% either but he still tried to get a couple of workouts in but he was exhausted after skiing all day since he had the week off.

By the time Friday came, I was finally feeling better. We were up early and it was going to be my first workout back at it. But since it was New years eve again nothing was open. Oh well, at that point I dont think one more day off would have meant anything. That night since it was New Years Eve we went out and enjoyed a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restuarants in revelsotke, then headed home and both of us fell asleep before midnight. Mind you we made it until 11 so we just pretended we were in Calgary. The gym was closed the rest of the weekend, so we didn't get our training in, but we did ski!.. i think that was our only consolation.

I had Yesterday off of work so I went and trained earlier in the day and then made meals for the rest of the week so we don't have to worry about cooking. It is something that we should try and do every week on sundays, but often the day gets away from us and we end up scrambling for dinner during the week. Our saving grace here is a place called Mountain Meals that have homemade, organic soups and sauces/stews. For 10$ we can feed each of us an awesome meal and only have to heat it up when we get home.

Looking forward to the New year, we have a few races leading up to the main event. We're both planning on doing the vancouver marathon in May, then I have the Oliver Half Ironman in June(which I was supposed to do last year but I broke my foot 2 weeks before), then Ironman Canada in August. Ben was toiling with the idea of doing an Ultra as well, but we'll see how the ironman training goes and how he could fit the training for an Ultra in. Other than training, we're just planning on enjoying where were at right now. We are loving revelstoke.