It’s been a few months now; something is up, but I just can’t figure out what it is. I’ve been exhausted. I feel run down every day. My appetite is good, I haven’t been sick that I’m aware of; I just have no energy. I went through a period where I had a headache for about 10 days in a row and saw my doctor; we did a whole slew of blood work, CT scan, allergy test, nothing. Everything looks perfect so I’m told. Sarah, my trainer, did a nutrition assessment for me and determined that my diet was not so great, but my blood didn’t indicate any deficiencies, and I feel like I’m generally eating better this year than last year, even though it still needs work. I track every single piece of food that I eat.
I’m giving myself more rest time now, and I’m barely able to train between these weekends of extremely difficult rides. I’ve researched ‘overtraining’ and I feel like I have all of the psychological symptoms but literally none of the physical symptoms. So that diagnosis doesn’t make too much sense to me. Maybe I just need more sleep. But I feel like I’m sleeping OK. I don’t feel sleep deprived or anything like that. Not really any different from last year.
My primary care doctor believes that I am suffering from postconcussive disorder. I really didn’t want to accept that diagnosis, just because the symptoms are so general that literally anyone could claim to have it, even if they’ve never hit their head. However, I have had four serious concussions, including two within a span of four weeks last fall. I may have even induced a fifth, smaller one, only two weeks after that period, when I fell off the front of my mountain bike. Since I’ve been tested for literally everything, it’s sort of hard to see that it could be something else.
In spite of having it, or maybe not having it, my doctor and I have agreed that I would not race this year. Also I had to agree not to mountain bike this year. I need a good long time away from another head injury to sort out what is really going on. We agreed that hillclimb events and road riding are about all I can do. But most days I feel like I can barely do them. I’m scheduled to meet with a neurologist in early July, so I’m hoping something positive comes of that. I’m on a waitlist to hopefully get in sooner.
Yesterday I was dizzy and sick to my stomach all day long. It’s still with me a little today. I’m keep hoping there’s some other explanation for all of this that has nothing to do with postconcussive disorder. But I have no idea. I’m supposed to race next week, and I don’t feel like I’m going to be up for training much in this last week leading up to it. Everything just seems really messed up right now and I have little to no ambition to do much of anything. It’s really hard to just do nothing for multiple days in a row, but I really don’t feel like there’s a choice at the moment. We’ll see. I truly hope Sarah is on to something and this is nothing more than a diet-related situation that could resolve in a matter of weeks.
chasing 1:20 