(WARNING THIS IS SOOO LONG IT MAY BE BAD FOR YOUR SANITY)
I want to précis this report with a bit of background to the last couple of years. At the end of 2007 my GP and lipid specialist started me on statins – I have familial hyperlipidemia which means that my liver produces ridiculously high levels of cholesterol which cannot be controlled through diet or lifestyle factors. The National Health Service in the UK works on the basis that in terms of probability, high cholesterol is linked to high risk of heart attack later in life, so dealing with the problem through medication in your 30s is a key preventative measure.
After lots of umming and arring, I was started on a very small dose of statins (10mg simvastatin) at the end of 2007, building up to 40mg by October to April 2008. Certainly my cholesterol levels started to come down to much nearer ‘normal’ levels. However, at the same time, I had started to experience some issues with training and staying healthy.
The problem with identifying the issues I was having as side effects of the statins was due to several factors: the side effects did not come on suddenly when starting to take the drugs and were not consistently bad; the symptoms were very similar to overtraining – something I had experienced before but not as severe as with the medication, and were also concurrent with me turning professional, so could have been due to increased training from trying to build more volume; and the issues gradually got worse and more frequent over time, which allows time for ‘normalisation’ of the problems.
The side effects were, in short: muscle aches and general muscle pain, fatigue, diarrhoea, lethargy, muscle wasting, cramping and severe muscle pain/cramping/lock out with high intensity. Over the course of late 2008 and early 2009 I just thought I was overtrained and kept coming down with “flu like symptoms” (aches and pains, staying in bed, just without the runny nose!). I had a two week period after Christmas 2007 when I couldn’t walk across the road without leg cramps and basically stayed in bed for a fortnight. I just about managed to recover for Epic Camp NZ at the end of January 2008, but never really got back to form following that. Ironman Australia was my first DNF of the year – I had to pull out at the beginning of the bike with whole body cramping after a very painful swim.
When I returned to the UK, my GP decided after many negative blood tests that I had post-viral fatigue, despite no real evidence of a virus or anything else to base my fatigue and general muscle aching and inability to train consistently on. In the back of my mind I kept thinking that I felt overtrained, not sure whether the my inability to train consistently for several months, often having more time off than I did on, was a symptom to support this or a reason to disprove it. But having finally gotten an answer from the GP, I accepted it, and as I was feeling OK, I tried to get back into training. A couple of bouts of ‘flu like symptoms’ later, I was determined to push through to IMUK ‘08. I wasn’t running for a period before the race to clear up an injury which was probably a good thing as it capped my training levels, and I had a good race. The lead up to Kona a few weeks later saw me back in bed for 2 weeks unable to train and missing peak completely – the race in Hawaii was my second DNF, this time just because I felt so weak on the bike and saw no point in wasting a run for a rubbish finish when I was on the start list for IMFlorida 3 weeks later. IM Florida turned out to be a good race (in terms of my fitness and health, not in terms of mechanicals!), and so the season finished and I put all the bad points behind me. Then the statin dosage went up again to 40mg.
Back training in Australia in November 2008, I was being ultra consistent and positive… perhaps this was in part due to the months supply of Coenzyme Q10 I was trialling (there is some paltry evidence that this can offset some of the statin side effects if taken in high enough doses), and perhaps it was because I had taken a few weeks off-season to fully refresh. Whatever the reason, I had only one ‘episode’ of extreme muscle pain lasting a couple of days in late December. Note that the chronic diarrhoea which I had by now normalised as part of my high veggie diet or something similar was continuing unabashed.
Come January however, and I was not so good. The ‘episodes’ of muscle pain became more severe and more frequent. I started to have to take a few days off to a week off from training at a time to get over the muscle problems, and I returned to the blood testing route with a local sports doctor in Geelong to try to find the problem. One day I even ‘ran’ (it only took about 3 minutes of light jogging that day to reduce me to a painful hobble) to the blood testing lab to induce the muscle pain so that the blood test would hopefully capture whatever was the issue at the time. But no joy.
More negative blood tests, and a DNF at HIM Geelong (cramping through the swim and agony getting onto the bike), more negative blood tests, and then a DNF again at IMOz ‘09 – this time I got hauled out of the swim half way round.
More than anything, not knowing what was wrong was a nightmare. With the weeks off training at a time, not being able to train and not knowing why, I was getting more and more depressed about it. Finally I got in touch with a doctor in the US who works with elite athletes and in no uncertain terms he told me that elite athletes rarely tolerate statins. The drugs work in a way to effectively block recovery. Hence elevated muscle pain and muscular issues and general presentation of overtraining at the gentle end, up to the major muscle problems I experienced on trying to push intensity in races or when trying to back up consistent training.
So back in the UK in April, I changed my GP. I stopped the statins (and note that I am still looking for an alternative course of action). Apparently it takes 6 weeks for the side effects to dissipate completely, but come the training trip to Italy at the end of May I signed up for the Nove Colli run and won the double mountain marathon. So it was finally time to start back into some consistent training. May, June and July were solid if not outstanding training months, working on getting some early races in to test that I was fixed and had put the problem behind me.
Feeling good on a training weekend in Spain a few weeks ago... I thought a photo with some sun in it might be in order :)
I had wanted to do IMUK again this year, so it was good to get a start there.
Apologies, that was a bit of a longer lead in than I had anticipated. At least you’ve got an idea of what the period of November 2007 to April 2009 was like for me… VERY rocky. So if you’ve made it this far, then here’s the race report…
(Race report proper starts here!)
IMUK had moved up North to Bolton from its location over the last few years down in Dorset. Never a race to pick an easy, quick course, the Bolton location offered a rolling bike course with plenty of corners in it and little chance to maintain solid speed. Lots of gear and pace changing ensured that while the bike course wasn’t challenging in a massive climb sense, it was by no means going to be fast. The exact details of the run course was kept pretty much under wraps until race day, but was also undulating to hilly and 100% on road. The swim at least should have been straight forward – a two lap affair in Rivington reservoir – calm and fairly sheltered… but even here, the organisers decided that perhaps a few extra hundred meters would make the swim more suitable to the IMUK ethos.
Heavy rain in race week had turned the race site and transition area into a mud bath. Luckily the weather held out on race day, although there were some solid headwinds to push against at some points on the bike.
The transition area was not ideal... (photo courtesy of Wiganer)
The build up the race was a relief for me. No muscle aches or insipient pain – before my last IM attempt in Oz the day before my ITBs and quads were already warning me that they were going to give me grief the next day if I tried to do anything more than stroll anywhere. Taper this time had meant that I was rested and recovered, rather than just giving the medication a couple of clear days to cause havoc with my recovery pathways.
Race morning started at 3:20 with breakfast. A few friends were up staying with me at the Roberts’, but they had very kindly been out in Manchester the night before and so as not to disturb the pre-race sleep, had taken it upon themselves to stay out in Manchester until after I got up. At 3:30 am Linda texted me to make sure I was up and give fair warning that they were on their way home. I think they made it to bed before the swim start at 6am - but to their credit were loud and lively by the time I made it to the run course later in the day. Thanks guys!
The swim I took fairly easy. Typically this had been where I would start to feel oncoming problems and where cramping and muscle pain would start to kick in and I would have to slow down or stop or face full body cramping. But apart from some light calf cramp which came and went a few times, no problems on the swim (in fact the new Aquasphere wettie has made all my OW swimming in the last few months a pleasure). My casual approach to the swim was probably a hang-up from my experience at IMOz 09 (and HIM Geelong and IMOz ’08), but hopefully next time I’ll not hold back so much. Out of the water finally in just under the hour (thanks to the extra distance on the swim not just my leisurely pace!) and in about 20th place overall, I was happy to be running up the hill to transition. It was quite a way up the hill! Into the muddy field where the bags and bike were, I opted to run to the road with my bike shoes before putting them on at the mount line to keep the cleats clear of mud but this only meant that there was a lot of mud inside my shoes!
The swim in Rivington reservoir (courtesy of Tritalk)
I worked far too hard on the first 40kms, getting a little over excited that I was finally into the swing of an IM race again. It didn’t seem to get me anywhere as I started to flag early and decided to go easy for the second lap. I swapped places with Bella and her camera crew a few times (she must be VERY patient to put up with them for the entire ride!), but my bike was starting to play up. While it didn’t really cost me any time, the gears were loosening and started to get very jumpy, the chain dropping a couple of times. By the third lap, if I wanted to be in the big ring, I had to hold the shifter in place to maintain it. This kept me more aero than I would have been otherwise through corners and small hills… where I would have given my back a rest, I was forced to keep the position to stick with the correct gearing. Later in the season with more aero time under my belt this might have been less of a problem, but after only a couple of months decent training I must admit to not having the tolerance for this much time in the aero position. Note to self: don’t get new cables in race week.
The road up over the moors on the bike course (courtesy of Wiganer)
The third lap I tried to push on, but there wasn’t much upside to my ride by then. A leisurely T2 saw me struggling to put on my compression socks while trying to remove any dried mud from my feet pre-run. Out onto the run course, I was suffering early with a very tight lower back. My aim was just to keep moving – hoping that it would ease out.
The lack of knowledge of the course and absence of mile markers made it difficult to judge pace, but it didn’t matter. I was at survival pace and I knew exactly how quick (or slow) that was.
But then the sun came out. My back eased off. There was hope. I started to run past a couple of people. The hills broke up what was actually quite a tedious course. The road was hard going and covered in traffic, the canal-side was actually hot, quiet and albeit briefly, flat. It was along the canal side on my way out towards Bolton centre the first time that I saw race leaders Phil Graves and Steven Bayliss heading back to the turnaround near the reservoir. The run had been pretty lonely as far as other competitors were concerned until then. The turnaround in town was in Queen’s Park – and it held a surprisingly steep set of dead turns with the kind of slope where you wonder whether it is actually quicker to walk up the climbs rather than try running.
The rest of the run passed without incident – thankfully. At one point my guts started to complain and that bloated, knocking feeling crept up, but luckily it settled down after a few cups of flat coke. I had to start walking the aid stations in order to get in enough fluids as the day started to warm up, but only because I was finding it difficult to hold three cups and run at the same time!
Finishing the run strongly (3:01) and clocking 11th MPRO (13th overall) left me feeling a little disappointed, but that faded and I am happy to have finished an ironman without incident after so many months of problems. Tough course – thanks IMUK!
Finishing 13th overall after a LONG day!
Big thanks to Jean and Ernie Roberts for letting me stay; to Timex, Trek, Bontrager, Newton shoes, Art of Tri and all the usual suspects; to Russ, Mike and Neil for the various lifts.
