long break

I have had a long break from training, and from a lot more. From the end of July through the beginning of November, I pretty much felt lousy. Dizzy/off-balance, very fatigued, caught at least 4-5 colds/other viruses, and just felt rotten. Went to my family doc, who checked everything and found the same neuropathy I'd had 3 yrs ago when my B12 was low. She referred me to neurology, and when I finally saw them in November, they did an EMG which was totally normal. I still have some neuropathy type symptoms, but they are mild and nothing to worry about apparently. Soooo....still no idea what's wrong. My best guess is chronic fatigue of some type plus stress and viral illness = sick Tammy. I've been feeling pretty good for a few weeks now, though this week I've noticed the fatigue and dizziness a little. Still, I want to racewalk more, so I am cautiously adding in stuff.

Yesterday I did 6K at 6:35/km, which is pretty fast for me lately. Most of my workouts that I've been able to do have been more like 6:45-7:00/km, so 6:35 was good. So today I decided to do a 3K fartlek, even though I know I've been a bit "off" this week. I still want to try and get back to racewalking...carefully. I had to work out at the indoor track because outside there was a light dusting of snow on the track and it was slick. The indoor track is nice & warm anyway :) and it's dark out so late now, so indoor is kinda nice.

I did 5 laps to warm up, with some strides on the last lap. It felt surprisingly OK to walk fast on that last lap. I did some dynamic stretching and then started in on the fartlek. I felt pretty good for 5 laps (2 fast, 2 med, 1 fast) but then the 1 fast, 2 med, 2 fast to end were tougher. My medium effort laps were slow because I'm out of shape, but not as slow as I feared. My fast laps weren't as slow as I thought they'd be either. However, I was ***really*** out of breath and very tired at the end. But hey, I made it, and I was much faster than I expected.

My times (2 laps, 585m) were 3:25.9, 3:49.1, 3:30.6, 3:51.0, and 3:30.1 --- corrected to 500m that is 2:56, 3:16, 3:00, 3:17, 3:00. Total time 18:07, corrected to 18:34 for a full 3K (this was 2926m). That's not so awful. OK, yeah, slow...but of course! I haven't been training. But it's not deathly slow.

3K fartlek data here. 

***

I have gained about 10 lb too, from the recent problems. It's hard to keep weight off when you're chronically overtired and not exercising as much as you are used to. I am trying to take it back off now that I'm feeling better, but it's a slow process. Baby steps.