Haven’t had my best week so far, but I’m using this time to educate myself and clean at least. My biggest issue is getting the energy to do what needs doing while I make all these changes. However, when you search online for help, the way you word things can be VERY limiting or so vague as to be useless.

I have two primary factors when it comes to my training and the sleep-diet-exercise balance I have to achieve: my obesity and my iron-deficiency anemia.

My obesity is slowly being chipped away the more active I am, so hopefully in a few months it won’t be much of a factor anymore. But the iron-deficiency anemia is a see-saw, and on days like today it impacts me terribly. I did myself no favors by being so busy at work that I didn’t get a chance to eat last night until very late, hours after I should have, and today my lethargy is ensuring I don’t work out. To top it off, I didn’t take my multivitamins with breakfast and if I’d been any weaker or less on the ball, I could’ve been at risk for nausea or dizziness at work.

So, that’s the focus of my questions this morning: new ideas for dealing with my anemia. And I’m going to have to deal with it effectively if I have any hope of being a runner, especially a distance runner. Unfortunately, every answer I’m finding online so far is telling me that distance running can create iron-deficiency anemia, especially in women. The articles don’t mention what I want to know most, which is how to train properly WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE iron-deficiency anemia and how to prevent making it worse.

In essence, I feel like I’m in a double-whammy: I’m trying to do something healthy and challenging to improve my life, but at the same time it will exacerbate the one major health issue I already have. I don’t have the funds to talk to my doctor at the moment, no trainers or mentors to ask for advice.

I did manage to get some basic info on iron-deficiency in runners from an article through RunnersConnect.net. It kind of calmed me down a bit and reminded me of some of the basics of anemic care that I can keep in mind. My biggest concern is upping my iron supplementation, which this article cautions folks about. I would not want to put myself at risk for secondary hemochromatosis (iron overload) because I got panicky or underestimated my efforts.

As I become vegetarian, I know that a lot of the typical iron-rich foods are going to be out of my reach, namely red meat. But there is plenty of iron in plant sources like spinach and beans, and I might not have to increase supplementation if I make sure to have vitamin c-rich foods to help the absorption of that iron. Considering how much more fruit I’ll be consuming than before, it’s workable.

The best answer I can get after going through several articles from runner’s magazines and medical pages online (most of which had very repetitive info) is to keep doing what I’m doing, but be consistent. I have my multivitamin with iron in the morning & will eventually supplement with B-12 (recommended for strict vegetarians). I already take an iron supplement at night before bed (made me nauseous taking it in the morning when it was recommended I have 2 a day, so the doc said just one dose at night & the multivitamin in the a.m.)

It’s a learning curve that requires taking careful notes and listening hard to my body so I treat it right. It’s hard to prepare for everything when I’m still making adjustments right and left to my training plans and my food intake, yet paying attention is a must. I can’t do what I used to do and just “wing it” and hope for the best. That’s a surefire way to make the injuries and illnesses pile up.

And I DEFINITELY want to avoid that. T-minus 192 days til race day now, and I need every bit of time to be my healthiest.