The Rollercoaster
The past year and a half has been a real rollercoaster for me.
I’ve been dealing with some very strange health issues since April 2022. In the beginning, I had crazy swelling and pain in my feet and legs, and since then I’ve had days of pain throughout my body, sometimes focused in one area, sometimes every joint in my body. I’ve had blurry vision, vertigo, numbness in my extremities, brutal headaches, and crushing fatigue. Any or all of those things, seemingly at random, sometimes for a day, sometimes two or three. Worst spell was about a week long. In between, I’d have weeks of no strong symptoms, though a constant underlying current is just feeling tired all the time. I’ve seen numerous specialists and had lots of diagnostic testing carried out to try and uncover the cause of the issues.
Lots of different things were ruled out along the way, until back in August (the day before my 49th birthday!), I was given a preliminary diagnosis of a specific, potentially progressive neurological / autoimmune disease. Needless to say, that was pretty disturbing, and I had to wait 4 months with that hanging over my head to see another specialist who thankfully has now “almost certainly” ruled that out. Now, we’re back to not knowing what the cause is, and a few other things have been uncovered (more on that below), but at least that particular weight is off my shoulders.
In terms of events / competition, I spent much of 2022 on the sidelines due to these issues, but then managed to get myself back in the game during 2023. I had a couple of events that went well (the Heads Or Trails Coldwater Classic 26K trail race in July, and helping my visually-impaired friend Sheldon tackle his first ever Spartan Race event at the Seattle Sprint in September). One unexpected adventure was tackling the Spartan Summer Death Race in Vermont on only 4 weeks’ notice at the end of June. I felt I did as well as I could have there given my limited preparation and zero experience with anything of that duration, lasting 24 hours before dropping out due to uncontrollable muscle cramping (you can read more about that experience here).
Two events that DIDN’T go so well were two of the most challenging middle-distance trail races around, the Run For Water 25K and Valley VertiKiller 30K, not coincidentally both taking place on my nemesis, Sumas Mountain, here in Abbotsford. I wasn’t properly prepared for either of those events due to my health issues cropping up and disrupting training at inopportune times (I went into Run For Water off of 6 weeks with hip and back issues and no running, and the VertiKiller with a couple of major episodes of symptoms in the three weeks prior to the event), but I manged to grind through and finished both of them.
The Valley VertiKiller 30K on Thanksgiving weekend in October was a real trial-by-fire, as I badly rolled my ankle a little over 2 km in, causing a severe sprain (and as I later discovered, an avulsion fracture). Being no stranger to ankle injuries on that mountain (I’m now 3 for 7 for severe ankle injuries during events there), my assessment at the time was that it was manageable, so I continued for the remaining 28+ km up and down the mountain, rolling the same ankle badly again later on along the way, and just squeaking in under the cutoff time at the finish.
That injury put me out of commission for over a month, and kept me off the trails for two and a half months. The enforced lack of activity, combined with a lack of discipline on the nutrition side of things due to a combination of feeling sorry for myself for my ongoing health issues and a case of the “fuck-it’s” over the injury wreaked havoc on my body, gaining nearly 20 pounds in 3 months (!) by Christmas time.
Which brings us to today…
Life Is Better At 50?
It’s 2024, the year that both me and my Super-Wifey, Raina, will celebrate our 50th birthdays, and after the past two years, I intend to make the most of it! I have committed to some pretty daunting events that will test my physical, mental and emotional resilience like never before, so I’m going to be putting in a very focused effort to be at my best physically.
To that end, next week I’ll be starting a pretty comprehensive training plan for my first ever 50K mountain ultramarathon I have coming up on June 1, alongside a commitment to get my ass in the gym working on my strength and movement fluency more regularly instead of just relying on my natural talents in that area (ironic, I know, considering what I do as a profession…LOL). The aim will be for all that focus to put me in peak physical condition for the day of my 50th birthday, when I have my first ever Spartan Race Ultra booked (presuming the BC interior isn’t on fire again).
This blog series is going to document my journey from where I’m at today (January 25, 2024) to the aftermath of my Spartan Ultra-Fecta Weekend around my 50th birthday.
Now that you have the background, here we go!
My Baseline
After the last couple of years of uncertainty with health issues and injuries, I’m starting 2024 on the mend.
My ankle injury has healed well, and I put it to the test on the local trails a couple of weekends ago. I’m satisfied that it is near 100% healed and ready to go. I still have some other health issues to deal with, some diagnosed (most notably gout, familial / genetic cholesterol issues and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), and some that we still don’t know the cause of (persistent fatigue and intermittent neurological issues), but I can best help manage all of those by being the healthiest, most active version of me possible, so that’s what I’m going to do.
I started 2024 weighing in at 209.1 pounds on New Year’s Day. As ever, that day’s weigh-in was a bit of an aberration, as a couple of days later I weighed in at 205.1 pounds. Over the past few weeks, my weight has fluctuated up and down, and as of today I’m now sitting at 203.9. With a bit more focus on my nutrition and the high amount of planned activity I’m heading into, I should naturally drop further from there, with the hope being that I’ll settle in somewhere in the low-180’s by the Run For Water Trail 50K on June 1.
Really, I’m just going to embrace the process over the next four months and see where I end up. It may look different from what I’m envisioning right now, and THAT’S TOTALLY OK. I just want to be the healthiest, fittest me possible by my 50th birthday, whatever that may be - no fixed expectations.
We’re kicking things off in a couple of days’ time with the Spartan Race SoCal Trifecta Weekend, which I’ll be running alongside my friends and clients, Kelly M (for the whole Trifecta), Steve L (for the Beast), and Amanda M (for the Super and Sprint). It’ll be good to get back on the Spartan Race course, and I feel it’s a fitting way to start this journey, given that my “finish line” is the Spartan Race Kelowna Ultra Weekend.
We’ll dig deeper into nutrition, training, etc. as this journey progresses. You’ll be able to follow along by looking for posts tagged “Ultra” here on the blog (here’s a link), or by liking / following my gym page on Facebook (here’s a link to that).
More to come next week!