Listen To Your Body

Training last year, I didn't feel like myself at all. I started "dragging" last spring, and the whole summer I felt like something was wrong. I follow the "listen to your body mantra", but sometimes you just want to push through. And push through I did, on a regular basis.

It turns out I did have something wrong. I didn't figure it out until the end of the season. I went to the doctor for my yearly, and told him I was tired all the time, dead tired, and my training was suffering. He said at my age (ugh), chasing after children, and working full time, I should expect to feel tired. Add training, and he had no sympathy for me whatsoever. As a matter of fact he looked at me and said, "Janine, what you are doing is awesome. You obviously are fit and taking care of yourself, and that's good. But" (the proverbial but!) "you are expecting too much. You are going to get slower with age, and anyone doing what you are doing would be tired." Was that a compliment or a criticism? I indicated my understanding by saying, "I'd like you to test my thyroid, because something is wrong with me." That seemed like a good place to start, given the majority of females in my family have thyroid issues. He said ok, but I shouldn't be surprised if it turned out fine.

I think he was the one to be surprised. Two days later I got the call that I was (am) hypothyroid, and I should start on synthetic hormone. All last year I did my triathlon training hypothyroid... as if training's not hard enough. No wonder I was so tired! The synthetic thyroid medication hasn't been a cure all. My doctor was right, I do have a lot of stress in my life, and I am still tired a lot of the time. But I'm glad I listened to what my body was telling me, and didn't chalk it up to "my age"! (I'm a spring chicken after all!) :)