It’s been some time since my last post, sorry I fell off the radar for a bit. In a nutshell, here’s what happened. Last summer I diagnosed with some fast growing ovarian cysts and the GYN recommended surgery to remove them, only because they had grown very quickly. They are very, very common and usually go away on their own so surgery isn’t necessary most of the time. But I had one burst and the other was growing very quickly so we decided for surgery. I was secretly hoping that the surgery might nudge my body through this never ending peri-menopause phase, which is another reason I opted for the more aggressive treatment.
The surgery went off like clockwork, the cysts were removed and recovery was two short weeks. The hot flashes and periods didn’t stop, but at least I knew there weren’t any foreign bodies in my ovaries. I had already had a mediocre running year so I figured, let me get this all out of the way now.
I didn’t do any marathons in 2016 and really didn’t have a great racing year at all. So I decided that 2017 would be the year to return to the NJ Marathon and at the very least finish it so I wouldn’t have that hanging over my head. Of course, the “secret” goal is to BQ, but I really just want to finish it without needing to go to the medical tent…
The races I’ve had this year have all had hot flashes toward the end of the race. No matter the distance, I’ve had to endure some kind of flushing and over heating at the end of just about every race I’ve done in the last 12 months or so. The one race that the hot flashes didn’t really have a negative impact on my performance was the Ted Corbitt 15K in December, when the air temperature was about 30 degrees. So I guess as long as I’m racing in sub-freezing temps, I’m good to go… That’s not really a solution, though, so I’m still searching for something that might help. I’ve started a new supplement so if that starts working I’ll share my results.
In the meantime, I have an awesome new training “posse,” three women who I admire and who push and entertain me while we are ramping up our miles. Three of the four of us are running the NJ Marathon so we’re on the same basic schedule and are having a good training cycle because of the support we’re getting from each other. It’s been great so far and I’m sure the next three months until April 30 are going to be great, too…
