Another Episode

A few posts ago I shared my experience with what initially presented itself as heat exhaustion. I vowed that weekend to never race again without being properly hydrated- but this past Sunday I got sick again, and left me questioning how much water, exactly, do I need? And if hydration isn't the root of the problem, what is?

The answer lies somewhere within a tangled jig-saw of medical minutia, which I hardly understand enough to begin making my way across what now seems to be a loaded minefield of possible dangers. I don't want to stop running, biking, swimming, sweating...but I don't want to be sick anymore, either. And I don't want to die, which is a very real possibility with some of the conditions that athletes face while they race. 2 years ago I would have never called myself or thought I would ever be considered an athlete- now I'm facing the reality of things like Exercise Associated Hyponatremia, which can be fatal.

Or, in a worst-case scenario, I could damage or lose my transplanted kidney. A sobering thought for me, but also justification for why I seem so tired when my running pals can keep going, why I swim, bike, and run so slow, and why I need extra rest days when it seems like everyone else can push on. Tomorrow begins another week of training, but it looks like I'll be abandoning my current plan until I can pinpoint what is causing me to have these 'episodes' after hard workouts. Which means I have to scale back some- way back- and although it may be difficult, it is certainly better than pushing too hard and arriving at the alternative.