More news on tiger angel

The various doctors that TA been seeing have all noted that her various chemical levels are a bit strange, but not so far out as to cause the problems that she's been having. She's been booked into a specialist for ages, but, being a specialist, he has really long waiting lists. Anyhow, this week was the appointed time, and he took one look at her various tests and said "there's the problems!"

His view is that, in addition to the problems that I've discussed previously (reactive arthritis, low iron and low thyroid), she is also insulin resistant. The reason that no one else has picked it up previously is that her high level of fitness has masked the various normal indicators. He picked up on an indicator that doesn't get masked, but which obviously is not known outside specialist circles.

However, just because the indicators are not obvious doesn't mean that the problems aren't there. One problem with insulin resistance is that the muscles don't absorb and carry glycogen, so there's no energy stored for when exercise starts. It's no wonder that she's been dragging herself around. The good news is that it, along with the other things, should respond to drug treatment - the doc has promised her that in 4 months she'll be bouncing around like a brand new thing :-)

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This week's been comparatively normal for me. Tuesday we ran with Angela (TA did the warm-up km and then walked on her own for another 1/2 hour), basically just running a hilly course, pushing the up and recovering the down. A bit slower than normal (~5:45 pace). Must have been the cold!

Wednesday, I ran my mega-hills loop. 12k at 5:10 pace. This is the elevation graph!
(and if you can't read it, it's a hundred metre elevation change from top to bottom). That hill at 10k is a killer...

The ride to work was odd today (Thursday). I just felt really lacking in energy; it was like I had to be 2 gears lower than normal the whole way. Boy, was it cold! I had 4 layers on, including my fleecy jumper, and it was still on by the time I got to work an hour later. Brrrrrr :-(

The energy deficit continued tonight at Run Club. We did our mini six-foot (1250m of a mixture - flat, hills, grass, bitumen, stairs, you name it). 3 laps in 18:20 including walking down the stairs for safety's sake. Topped it off with a no-watch km. Boy, did I get that wrong! :-) I said 4:05, and did it in 3:38. And here's me priding myself in my ability to pick a pace and run it. Not tonight! [TA disobeyed coach's orders and ran tonight anyway - did 2 laps of the mini 6'. Still in one piece :-)]

Gnome