Friday, March 27, 2009

Muscle soreness and My cholesterol Medication

I have been on been on Simstatin a statin cholesterol lowering med since mid December. I recently had heard from another ultra runner that he stopped taking statins because of muscle soreness. I has heard that that was a possible- but low incident side effect and a person was to let their physician know immediately if they had any unexplainable soreness.
Well being a runner I get sore and being a person who is getting older- well who is to say what is explainable and what is not.
Wednesday eve I did a 25K loop out at Afton. I could not believe how totally sore I was, it started before 10 miles even and lasted even after I stopped running and into the evening. Actually Saturday for my 26 miles at Afton I was very sore early on also. I was very sore in my 50 mile race- actually probably earlier than I would have thought- sore in my teens rather than progressively later in the race. Hum.. I have been having some leg cramping and some other aches and pains also, something I never had alot of but again with my milage lately probably wouldn't think much of it either.
So yesterday I started an Internet search to try to find some answers. It turns out that the muscle soreness is a very real especially for athletes. There was this study of like 22 female athletes who had the family induced type high cholesterol and they went through all the different statins and it ended up all but 3 I think it was could tolerate continuing. There is also something that the statins blocks production of in the liver that is used for your muscles to be not broken down.
Rhabdomyolysis is something that can happen if the muscle breakdown were to the extreme and it can even be deadly. One woman ignored her muscle pain and did an event of some kind anyway with really bad results. (hum..would this be like continuing on during a 100 mile race while you felt like your muscles were already at their breaking point).
I had also the results from my blood test last week an my cholesterol was down some but my liver test was slightly elevated ALT(SGPT)-not sure what it means can't find anything about if elevated liver whatever is bad for an ultrarunner?.
Short story- I have stopped taking the cholesterol med and will hope I am OK for my 100 mile race in two weeks.
Since I just stopped my first dosage last night I really don't know how hard I should work out this week. I was planning on getting in abaout 30-40 tomorrow but I am sort of freaked out now.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Land between the Lakes 50 mile race




Last Saturday I did the Land between the Lakes 50 mile race in Grand Rivers Kentucky. I was a bit worried about whether I would be able to complete the race since they said they had an 11 hour cut off. I had run 50 miles on the road in under 11 but never on trail before under this time. I was relieved a bit the week before the race when I learned you would drop down to the lower race- 38 miles if you were unable to make the 50 mile cut off.
There were quite a few of us from Mn as you can see from the photo. The horn blew to start the race right as the photo was being taken.
It was rainey and chilly. The course was nice single track mostly rolling hills nothing horribly steep but hillier than I expected, but it was pretty muddy. I was sure during the first and 2nd loop (the loops were close to 12 miles) that I wouldn't be able to complete the 50 miles in time. I kept tryng to tell myself to quit the negative thoughts and it is possible later in the race to get faster. The big cut off was finishing the 3rd loop in 8 hours. I had a really good 3rd loop- felt like I had more energy than the previous 2 loops- funny how that works sometimes. Ralph who lives near Ft Knox started following me early in the 3rd loop. Ralph and I both have family members who have died from Diabetes- both of us feel like we run to keep from getting diabetes, it was great meeting someone who felt like I did. He said he really had no intention of making the 4th loop- was almot an hour over the time last year. Him and his friends who were way behind him were like alot of people who know they probably won't make the cut off but sign up for the 50 mile anyway and are happy with the 38 mile finish. I pushed to make it - we made it with 10 mins to spare, I might not make the time limit for the race but at least I was going to get the 50 miles in. The 4th loop was slower for me, Ralph who was shocked to have made the cut off decided to go ahead and finish the 4th loop too. It was great making it out of the woods after the 4th loop- the volunteer told us to head up the road 1/2 mile and turn around before heading back to town- yes!!! I was not being dropped!!! There was 2.7 miles to go on road back to the finish. The road felt good. My pants were so muddy and hung below and under shoes. I finished in like 11:22- 3rd from the last.
It was a really fun trip. I am going to do this one again- hopefully with no mud.