Out Running Anemia: When you just can't...

Me not feeling well. :-(

I'm a fairly healthy person. I rarely get sick or feel ill. But when I do get sick, or feel less than my best, watch out. I go down really hard. I was tired during my Jacksonville trip, but I just chalked it up to my occasional bouts of insomnia.

But by Aug. 28, I felt so drained that not only had I not been able to run, I was often light-headed and having a hard time concentrating at work. I knew something was very wrong. My running-buddy Jenn and I had concluded that it was likely anemia, but you don't want to go taking iron supplements all willy-nilly so I took myself to the good people at Simplicity Urgent Care in Arlington, Va. to see what they could tell me.

Iron pills suck!

Jenn and I might look like ordinary runners, but we play doctors on TV. Our diagnosis was right -- boy were we right. The doctor basically said, "Take two steaks and these iron pills three times a day and call me in the morning." He also said something else I wasn't expecting: lay off the running!

Competitor Mag Article

I've battled anemia before, but never as a runner. I had no idea that distance runners, particularly female runners are at great risk of iron deficiencies. It makes sense, I just never put the two together. I also had been fiddling with vegetarianism and clearly not eating enough iron rich foods to replace the iron that you get from eating a nice piece of red meat.

But as a runner you know what I did: I ate the steak, kind of took the pills and basically laid off the running for two weeks and then got back out there. I feel a lot better now, but here are a few lessons learned:

1. Listen to your body. If you feel bad, or something is unusually painful, go to the doctor.
2. Cold turkey can be dangerous. No, eating cold turkey isn't dangerous, but drastically changing your diet without a plan for how to replace missing nutrients is.
3. Heal now, run later. Whether illness or injury, sometimes you simply have to stop what you're doing to speed your healing.

Until next time...happy running!

-- The Brown-Runner Chick