serum ferritin

I'm not exactly "injured", but am forestalling something serious by taking a few days off.

It seems that American hero Alan Culpepper is another of the illustrious names (ahem) who has been bothered by a lack of iron in the blood.

The latest Running Times has a good story on this unsuspected scourge of distance athletes.. read it here.

One thing I disagree with. RT's Richard Lovett writes: "Treatment is fairly simple". Hmm. One runner in the article apparently solved it by eating steak; Culpepper took supplementa and six weeks later was OK. Not my experience :)

Well, it's taken around 4 months to track down and fix, but it looks like my serum ferritin problem is over.

Um... that's the good news. The bad news is - does this mean I've got no more excuses?

A quick recap in the best tradition of the soaps: Simon ends the season burnt out and injured, has a month off running to allow the adductor tear to heal up, starts training,goes down with a virus, recovers magnificently, starts training, gets slower and slower and more and more tired. Reduced to training only every other day, he gets a blood test and discovers he has basement-level iron stores, so hasn't got enough oxygen in his blood. This is quite worrying, seeing that he is living and training at altitude. Gets an iron shot in the butt and embarks on two months of iron supplementation. Retests: serum ferritin goes DOWN. Has intravenous iron. Feels worse. Guts shot to hell. Can't breathe when at speed, but lung function tests super-normal. Starts to feel OK except at speed.. the first "good" sign for months. Suspects iron problem is fixed but has lost so much training he is now just not fit enough...

All my iron supplements seem to have achieved is to inflict me with a persistent case of the "trots". If it goes on much longer I risk my self-image slipping from "fit old git" to a semi-incontinent senior with encyclopedic knowledge of every Portaloo in the state, doomed to wear beige and go on coach trips for the rest of my life.

So...back to Doc Fran at the urging of coach Bobby for a course of iron shots. "Ask her about getting intravenous iron" said Bobby, "we'll have to consider it if things don't pick up soon." He's as frustrated and surprised as I am that I'm cranking out 80-second 400-metre repeats with all the sound and fury of someone doing 74s. My heart rate stays low; my lungs just can't get enough oxygen. I gasp, pant, heave -- anfd feel like I'm jogging.

OK... my serum ferritin has actually gone DOWN a tad, from 35 to 33, according to my latest blood test.

This is weird, considering that a) I am mainlining iron supplements of several different types and b) I'm responding to training so much better.

Dr Fran's current theory is that my body was desperate for new blood and has GRABBED all the new iron I've been putting in and used it to make loads more red blood cells. It cost $60 just to get serum ferritin tested, so this time I did not get a complete blood count. Darn it. If I had, we'd have known for sure whether I had more oxygen-carrying blood cells on duty or not.

It's back.

The very day after I enjoyed a luscious trail run in old-style Nike Frees, a celebration of things back to normal... the iron is getting through, the legs felt good; I took it easy-ish as a compromise between the "quality versus quantity" argument -- soundly won by quality -- and the helpful suggestions of coach Bobby McGee that maybe, just maybe, given my winter of injury rehab, virus attack, basement-level serum ferritin and serious attempts to "run" in knee-deep snow and/or ankle-deep mud, it might be wise to do some of the now-despised moderate-pace runs....

yes, the very next day I sprang out of bed (well, OK, I didn't...I staggered), looked out of the window and there is was. Again. Snow. Deep snow and still falling. No., I'm not happy now. This is some kind of sick joke. Like... you couldn't get to the Pole so we'll come to you????? Enough already.

I know what you're thinking: "His legs are twitching because he hasn't been out for a run". Well no. My running urge got well-sated by Saturday's 5k test, in which I barely escaped getting lapped by Kyle, my fellow miler.

The good news is, my energy is back and I'm out there mixing it up. I feel strong and "athletic" as a result of all the plyos I'm doing up and down the living room. But I am still running like a turtle. I had to set my sights low on Saturday or risk self-destruction. I was shooting for 21 minutes and came in at 19 something. Kyle was at 17 something, with some good speed in his legs after sixth place in his age division at the US national cross-country championships last weekend.