Go to bed!

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Bo

It has taken a trendy little wearable device to point out the fact that I’m not getting nearly enough sleep. I’ve been wearing a Jawbone UP since December. It tracks the number of steps I take each day, it helps me keep a food as well as a water diary, logs my weight and keeps a note of my general mood during the day. But the handiest part is that it tracks my sleep patterns.

I’ve seen the research that says we should all be getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night so I set that as my goal. I was fine over the December holidays but since getting back to work in January, I somehow cannot get to bed early enough. My Jawbone keeps warning me that I’m only averaging 6 hours of shut eye every night, way below the average and not enough to be operating at my best during the day.

I’ve started to take notice of my energy levels at work. Lately I’m grumpy. I’m stressed. I’m snappy. Most days when I get home, I have to fight the urge to snooze on the bed than put my trainers on and head out the door to run. To make matters worse, I’m getting even less sleep on weekends because we run track on Saturday mornings and a race or club run on Sundays so we never sleep in. Not only is sleep important for my work and my health, but my running too. Everything suffers!

So I need to do something about it. I need to be more disciplined and make it a habit to get to bed early. I have to wake up by 5:30 so my only option is to get to bed by 21:30 at the latest in order to get my 8 hours in. I’m taking it quite seriously too because I know I can only go on for so long before I burn out or get sick.

It starts tonight!

Pain in the um, er…side.

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Bo

Boy am I miserable. After a check-up at the doc last week, I was instructed to rest and give my torn intercostal muscle time to heal. It’s meant no gym, no spinning and no running (not even at my slow pace which some might consider a stroll in the park).

I’m trying to be patient. I know that running the Old Eds 10km race two weeks ago was most probably not the wisest of moves and potentially made my condition worse. If only I had listened to my body, I might have started to heal much quicker.

To make things worse, everywhere I look, people are running. Scrolling through my Twitter timeline and running mates are gearing up for Soweto marathon. Others are kick-starting their half marathon training schedules into gear. KK is waiting to see whether or not City 2 City will go ahead. Me? Well I’ve been resting. Lying on the bed after work, glugging down glasses of glutamine and rubbing arnica oil on my side.

I’ve never been the most patient person. I confess that I wake up each and every morning hoping this irritating side stitch will go away. But it lingers…

In a way, it’s been a blessing in disguise. The ‘time off’ has allowed me to check in with my goals. I’ve realised what matters to me the most. I now know what I want to achieve with my running. I know what I want! In my head, I’ve decided on my new challenge. My new goal. My new training regime. But physically, not yet ready to launch… Come on body!

Miss Diagnosis

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Bo

They warn you about Googling your symptoms, but when an aching pain on the side of my body did not want to go away, I became desperate. Having suffered from Ulcerative Colitis (wiki link if you’re keen to know what this is) since 1998 and lately Enteropathic Arthritis (another wiki link), I feared the worst! All the search results pointed to an enlarged spleen or some form of liver cancer. Eeeek!

So I headed off to my Gastroenterologist who immediately did a battery of tests, trying to figure out what this odd pain was. I know a couple of people on my Twitter timeline and Facebook pages suffering from severe illnesses and as I sat waiting for my test results, I wondered how I was ever going to face another complication from my bowel disease.

A pulled stomach muscle? Huh? When the test results came back, and my Doc did one last check, he concluded that yes, I am having another inflammation attack but it wasn’t anything serious. Somehow I’d managed to pull a muscle on my lower left side just under my ribs and that’s what was causing the pain. How the hell?

Relief…

It’s every runner’s nightmare to be told to rest but that’s pretty much what I’ve been forced to do. The whole week, no gym, no running, not even a walk around the block. Unable to take any anti-inflammatories or pain killers, I’ve pretty much relied on a hot water bottle and panados to ease the pain. It’s still niggling and I’m wondering if I should take another week off? I’ll see…

Forced to sit this one out

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Bo

New Year’s resolutions look differently when you’ve had the rough December I’ve had…

On the 17^th December, I lay in a hospital bed with a drip in my hand in the Sandton Medical emergency room feeling absolutely miserable. Just a week away from celebrating Christmas, I realised that the last three months have been the worst I have ever felt battling a disease I have tried desperately to hide from majority of those around me. Managing the actual disease has been fine but the extra-intestinal manifestations of Ulcerative Colitis have really taken its toll.

Excruciating arthritis attacks on the joints of my hands and shoulders; painful eye infections due to the arthritis which caused my whole cheek to seize up; a revolting rash (and another late night hospital visit) which turned out to be Urticaria; constant mouth ulcers and now something new… Crippling pain in the right hand side of my abdomen shooting up into my shoulder.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time reflecting on my health during December. Being an utter control freak it’s difficult accepting that there is absolutely nothing I can do to control an auto-immune disease which at the moment seems to be attacking me on all fronts. Ironically, the worst part is that I’ve not been able to run.

I had planned to do so much running while I was on leave during this time, especially training for the Dischem half marathon which would kick-off my 2014 running year. But with the pain and no energy, all I managed was a 5km run at the gym.

My blog has always been focused on my running speed. My slow pace and my insecurities about my running. But sitting on that hospital bed, all I wished for was that I was healthy and able to put on my running shoes and head out for a run. I thought, who the hell cares how slow I run. I don’t even give a damn if those walkers come past me. I just want to be healthy and fit enough to run.

Running means I’m strong. Running means I am healthy. Running means I am able to conquer my fears. Running means I am in control of my body. I’m sure I’ll be fit soon but for now, my New Year’s ~~resolution~~ wish is for a healthy body.