The Running Diva

Friday, August 8, 2008

Dave and I made plans to meet at Beckwith Park this morning. OCal happened to be going for a run with Paddy and was passing through the park so he stuck around and watched us go through the drill circuit we put together. After a warm-up we did 3 sets of four different drills (plyos, strength exercises etc) with 80m strides between each drill and a lap of jogging between sets. We fine-tuned the circuit today so that we started each set with a plyometric drill. We want to be certain of holding good form in the plyos so we found that doing them after the lap jog gave us enough rest to go into them fresher. Juice came along too and did the 30′ warm-down with me and OCal to his place and then continued up around Christmas hill and back to the park.

I got my blood test results and sure enough my iron levels are a bit low. Not as low as in 2005 but definitely not in the range they should be in. My ferritin since last fall went from a reading of 50 to 23 (ouch) and my hematocrit and hemoglobin, although still in the normal range, are on the low end as well. I am not that surprised. Looking back, I suspect I was low starting this past spring. At least I caught it early this time. So, I’ll get back on the program of taking liquid iron regularly again. I was trying to not take it all the time since I was told that taking an iron supplement all the time can be harmful.

This evening we went to the send-off for our Olympic triathletes who leave next week for Beijing at Fort Street Cycle. There was a very large turn-out, apparently more than what they were expecting. Everyone on the team was introduced including the support staff (yay Kimmy!!) who will also be going. It’s going to be an exciting race for both the men and women. Simon of course is ready to reclaim his gold medal status. Carolyn Murray is so bloody strong and Lauren has had such a great year too…I can barely wait to see how well they do! Good luck to all you guys!!!!