The final push…

Hello again. I’m back for another installment of “what in the world has Erika been up to?”

Right. About that.

I actually have no idea. There are days when I wonder where the time went, and what I actually “accomplished” in the 15 hours I was awake. Much of the time I feel like a fish out of water, struggling to know what’s going on, floundering about, trying to breathe, and how to get back in safe environments.

via Google

I would be lying if I said it’s been easy. Dealing with my “new normal” has been eye opening. I try so hard not to stress myself out too much (which is always easier said than done for every human on the planet) and I usually fail miserably.

But I also am trying to keep perspective in mind as much as I can. Things could be *so* much worse. Honestly, nothing that is going on in my life is that bad. I have much to be thankful for and try to focus on those vs. the challenging things. It’s not easy. I tend to throw myself down a rabbit hole and try to take on the weight of the world, which I can not do, clearly!

I did go last week to meet with my cardiologist and he had zero concerns for me, which is always refreshing. My blood pressure while I was there was 100/67 which is awesome for me. I did tell him that the medication I’ve been taking has been working well but if I don’t take it, I do notice I don’t feel great. He wants me to test out not taking it for a couple of days and record my BP during that time.

I tried to do that last week for about 42 hours and it was the absolute WRONG time to do that test. I think I’ll wait until after Ironman, and after some of my work obligations calm down a bit before I take my armor away. I need it, and I’m ok with the fact that I need it right now. Maybe in the future I won’t but until then it is my new normal.

The other good news is that my training has been peaking just at the right time. Coach Matt keeps reassuring me that I’m hitting every workout just as he wants and my running is really coming along. I’m thrilled with how I’ve been handling the longer workouts and that my heart rate is behaving, even during 3 hour runs. I have pared back on swimming to only 1 day a week, as my times have been right where I need them to be with each 4,000 yard workout I do. No need to kill myself in the pool, as I know it won’t change my overall time by more than a minute or two over the course of the race. I’d rather focus on quality bikes and runs. I’m sure lots of my fellow competitors are doing many, many more swim workouts than me, but I’m super confident with that piece so no need to overthink it.

We are officially 30 days out from Ironman.

via Google

I have one more big weekend coming up – probably a 3+ hour run one day and a 100 mile bike ride another. If I can survive those unscathed, I’m ready to start slowly tapering down. We’ll reduce by about 30% and continue to go down from there until race week. Only two more weekends after this one and I am hopeful I can scale back quite a bit and start to rest my mind and muscles in preparation for the race.

We also are anxiously awaiting the start of school – finally, back to routines and schedules. Summer is really tough for me – working from home is great for flexibility but it’s really not ideal when your kids are there too, fighting and being buttheads to each other because they’re bored.

And we are hosting an exchange student from Spain for the school year – she just arrived last week! I know, everyone thinks it’s crazy but honestly I’m so excited for the opportunity and she is fitting in already. Her name is Paula, she’s 15 and comes from a family very similar to ours – her dad is an Ironman, her mom a swimmer! So she “gets it”. And hey, we have a built-in babysitter now! She loves to babysit and the girls already adore her.

So that’s the low-down for the end of August. We are ready for Spartan football to start up on Friday, our niece is a freshman at MSU now so we have even more reasons to be on campus!

Enjoy the last bit of summer – I’m so excited for fall to kick in. It’s my favorite time of year and I can’t wait for this heat to go away – I’m so over it!

Thanks for reading – if you’ve made it this far!

Until next time…

Where do I even start??

Let’s see how this goes. It’s been about eleventy billion (that’s a real number…in my brain anyway…) months since I’ve written a blog post. I don’t know why. I love to write, but it’s been the first thing to go on my discard pile. It kind of bums me out but sometimes reality bites.

Wasn’t that a movie?

Anyway…here we sit already a week into AUGUST and I can hardly believe it. Since my last post, I don’t even have a clue where to start. Life has taken a lot of twists and turns. Like, a lot. It’s thrown me completely for a loop at times, and presented clarity at times. I’ve tried to keep my head above water through it all – albeit failing at times. Figuratively of course.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been happening:

• Rob and I both decided to sign up for Ironman Maryland – eep!
  • It will be his first, my 4th as most of you know
  • He’s been training like a beast with his own coach and will be ready to race come September 29th
  • Matt graciously agreed to help me again this year and has kept me focused and on track even through my challenging times (more on that in a bit)
• We both have been focused on this race so I haven’t done any triathlons so far this year – Rob did one Olympic distance in June
• I started a new job in February – still with the same company but on a new team
  • It’s been an awesome change for me the last 6 months and I am very lucky to have landed on my team
  • It’s been hella busy though
• The girls are great – ages 9 and 4 now; active, funny and keeps us constantly on the move

Ok so those are the big highlights.

Now to the fun part I’ve been dealing with. Get comfy and grab some popcorn: this is a long story…

So, I’ve been a regular blood donor for more than 20 years – I try to go every time I’m eligible and have rarely ever had an issue. When I went at the end of April, the nurse told me my blood pressure was high (like 175/108 high…my normal is 120/60). She asked if I had a lot of caffeine that morning or if I was nervous, to which I said no to both.

They took my reading again a few minutes later and it was even higher. They of course told me I wasn’t able to donate but I could try again tomorrow. I immediately began to panic because I knew this wasn’t normal.

I called my sister-in-law Janene who is a nurse and asked her. She told me to see how I felt later on that day and take myself to a drug store to use one of the free BP reading machines. I went that evening, took 3 different readings and they were even higher, about 180/111 which is insane.

I then casually texted our neighbor Doru, who is an ER attending physician and he immediately called me, extremely concerned. I bought a BP cuff and started keeping track of my readings every few hours. It didn’t improve. Doru and Janene were both baffled. I spoke with my boss and my director the next morning, who both told me I was to be off work until I figured out what was going on. I went and got a massage, thinking maybe it was just stress. No change – BP was still dangerously high. I was told if I overdid it at this point, I was at risk for a massive stroke.

Holy crap. I was absolutely terrified.

I was in a cardiologist’s office within 36 hours of first learning of this. HE was even baffled as to why I was there. Explaining I was a 3-time Ironman, my health history, no family history of heart or BP issues…it all made no sense. He said this was more typical of someone in their 70s, not a 42 year old mom of 2 young kids.

Over the next week, I was put through every possible test under the sun. They took blood from me multiple times, I did a 24-hour urinalysis, EKG, ultrasound, CT scan of my entire lower body from my ribs down. In the meantime, he put me on a super low dose of a hypertension medication that had a combination diuretic to help control my BP while we waited on the test results. Thankfully it did bring my numbers down close to my normal. But if I was late taking the medication, it would spike back up.

And guess what?

Literally NOTHING came back as wrong on all of the tests. He thought it may have been a narrowing of my renal artery but the CT scan didn’t reveal that.

Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. So what’s the diagnosis?

Early onset hypertension.

And he said I was idiosyncratic and it didn’t make sense given my age, no family history, no triggers, my exercise regimen with my training.

Awesome.

So now what? Well, my new normal is to be super aware of how I’m feeling (if I start to feel anxious or like I have massive butterflies in my stomach, I take a BP reading to make sure), watch when I get headaches, stay super hydrated and be careful during training.

After a few weeks, the doc and Doru said I had an “Ironman heart” and I was cleared to go back to training for Ironman. I was pretty sure I was going to have to defer or cancel out of the race all together but they assured me I was ok.

But, because I was scared out of my mind of the possibility of a stroke had I not discovered this when I did, I couldn’t run. I literally would freak myself out every time I tried to run. Like my HR was 30-40 beats higher than where it should have been even when I was basically walking.

It was all in my head. Everything felt fine – my resting heart rate was still around 55 which is totally normal.

So I had to take some time away from running and just do some easier bikes and swims to get my head screwed on straight again. It was not an easy time for me. I cried a lot. I questioned what I’d done wrong. I wanted so desperately for the doctor to find something “wrong” so he could just fix it. I was prepared to need a stent in my kidney.  I was prepared to need my first surgery ever in my life (other than my wisdom teeth). But to no avail. Which I guess is a good thing overall, but again, I would really prefer to not have to take the BP medication forever.

I go back in a couple of weeks for a checkup again. I am not anticipating any issues to arise, but we’ll see.

But I have to say, my original goals for Ironman have changed 100%. I am now going to be on the course with Rob and encourage him as much as I can. I’m going to try and enjoy the journey and soak in the day. I’ve already resounded myself to the fact that this is my last full Ironman. I can’t put my body (or my mind) through this again. I’ll stick with shorter distances and see how it goes.

To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. It’s been very hard to grasp all of this and I’m mad that I feel like all of the hard work I’ve put in with my training and striving to do my best is crashing down around me. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

My friend Jon told me to look at this new medication as my “body armor” and embrace it as something that’s protecting me. I’m trying really hard to shift my thinking to that. It’s not been easy, though.

I really didn’t talk about this to many people – I was honestly ashamed and so frustrated that I just didn’t want to face reality. When I did decide to ask my amazing Coeur teammates if anyone else had experienced this, I was surprised to hear several of them had or knew someone who had. Not that it was a “good thing” but it did help put it in perspective for me, that I wasn’t the only one.

I guess the bottom line is no matter what’s going on in life, chances are you’re not alone. But I also never want to be a burden on anyone so it’s been a life lesson for me too: ask for help when you need it.

So there you have it.

Sorry this was so long, but it’s honestly a bit therapeutic for me to write these words and share.

We are 7 1/2 weeks away from race day, so that means another 3-4 weeks of hard training before taper time. Thank god.

I’ll do my best to update more often but if I don’t, hopefully you’ll understand why!

Thank you in advance for your support and reading about this – if you’ve made it this far: please know I appreciate you!

Enjoy the rest of your summer – I am SO looking forward to school starting again. I need routines back!