I liked to running gait and cadence she has in the 8. Seems relaxed and relatively free of much fatigue and other elemental weaknesses. Particularly from approximately 200 to 700m.
"K’ is very ‘Tough’, extremely ‘Prideful’ and ‘Stubborn’ kid. She ‘Owns’ everything she is involved in and is very critical and tries to understand/learn as much as she can in her events.
Every track coach she has worked with has been amazed at how hard she works and what she puts herself through…
Coaches from other schools will often either make comments or ask how to get their best athletes to train the same.
For her to complain of having symptoms, it is something very real, and is something that is seriously effecting her. That is why I was concerned and kept at it.
.
For example, last mid February she was competing at an indoor college meet.
This was at the end of her 12 week SPP and we were very excited to see the results of the program at that meet.
Her performance was not good at all… I was confused. She was very quiet on the drive to the meet and during the meet.
I kept asking her how she felt… she just seemed down, and not happy about something, but she kept saying she was ‘fine’.
After the meet, walking to the car I asked her questions about what she ate, how she felt, slept ect. trying to figure out what was the issue.
She then told me that during the past week she had a bad ‘burning’ pain when she used the toilet… and that she was urinating blood.
As you can imagine, I was shocked…I asked her, why did you not say something about this?
She commented “You wouldn’t let me race this weekend if I did”
I took her straight to the hospital and she was later diagnosed with a serious upper UT infection, which after many doctor appointments, lots of lab visits, it took about 5 weeks to fully recover from… including the first 4 weeks of HS outdoor track.
The antibodies I mention are specific to the mononucleosis infection. They are ‘found’ after doing specific tests for mononucleosis:
http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/ebv/tab/test/
The iron deficiency and the mononucleosis are real, they have been verified/diagnosed and the level of infection was high.
I agree. But if the temperature was around 80 or higher, she would not be doing so well, as warmer temps really weaken her at this time. Even her first time running the 800m in 6th grade (age 11) she ran it with ease, competing with 6th, 7th and 8th grade kids (warning, 1st time using new video, very poor quality) ‘K’ is in blue uniform, wearing #3, starting in lane #2/3:
'K’s second time running the 800m in 8th grade, age 13, is a better quality video.
She planned her strategy before the meet, stuck to it to the end and made it work.
Lane #4, orange shorts, blue top:
Her close in the second race was exciting. IMHO, it seems that all the movement and lower body rotation work has benefited this event as well. She has certainly improved running quality since the early grade class period.
This has been etremely frustrating, as I’m dealing with inept Dr.'s.
Had all the blood work (second round of tests) done on July 11th, a phone call about a week later saying she recently had a serious mononucleosis infection, then a Dr. appointment on Tuesday of last week.
I made the mistake of assuming that the iron deficiency and mononucleosis were all that showed up on the 2 different blood labs done in the past month… I asked all the right questions and the Dr. talked about the need for rest and recovery from the mononucleosis infection and to continue diet/supplements for the iron until 'K’s appointment with the Hematologist, which the hematologist already indicated that she would probably get iron IV’s.
At first, I trusted that the Dr. had been thorough, and even though I was going to get a copy of the blood labs, I was in no hurry.
Then, I thought I better check them out, as there were many labs taken and might as well check, something may have been missed.
Sure enough… looking at the cortisol test was High. In one of the thyroid tests, the ‘FREE T4’ test also came out Abnormal High.
Coincidently, the same day that I reviewed the labs I get an email from the dietitian, as the Dr. had sent her a copy of the labs, in her email she says:
“‘K’ does have an elevated T4 but her T3 is WNL. This is something I would keep an eye on especially if adrenals continue to be an issue. Still adrenal fatigue is an issue and definitely would be playing havoc with her performance.”
Again, very frustrating that the Dr. did not either understand or missed this and did not say a work.
In a little more than a week she has the appointment with the hematologist, for which, I have already written all my questions on paper. I am much more confident that with this Dr., issues will be dealt with properly and professionally.
Looking back…
First going to the Dr. in early June for these symptoms and getting the 1st blood test done… told everything normal, just rest… then getting a copy of the blood labs and seeing she was iron deficient, and far from ‘normal’!
Then I pushed for a referral to a Sports Med. family physician, who supposedly is the best in our city… he refused to listen to me about the iron decency, the need for more testing for mononucleosis, possible thyroid issues, adrenal fatigue issues, etc.
He was adamant that even though all the symptoms and evidence pointed to the problems I mentioned and didn’t so much support his ‘diagnosis’ that he was standing by, that ‘K’ was suffering low Glycogen reserves from not eating properly and would refer he to a dietitian.
He said he based this on the fact that the last 2 or 3 female athletes that came in to see him over the year complaining of fatigue was given the same diagnosis, referred to a dietitian… and they never came back, so it must have been correct!.
Then, after doing some more research, I took ‘K’ back to her regular Dr. and pushed for more extensive blood tests, and the ones that the Sports Dr. refused.
From both of the blood tests:
Tested very low (17) Serum Ferritin (iron deficient)
Tested Positive for mononucleosis (recent, severe)
Tested Positive for Thyroid (elevated T4) issues
Tested Positive for Adrenal Fatigue
Considering that the symptoms started towards the end of May, continued to worsen… especially as the weather became hotter, she became very heat sensitive too.
I can only wonder how the blood labs would have looked had they done all of them at the beginning of June?
I don’t know what it takes to get a good Dr.?
'K’s Dr. is one of the most popular in our city, but she is a pediatrician, so she is quite overloaded. The Dr. is young, ‘K’ was one of her first patients about 3 or 4 years ago. I guess the one thing is that she is flexible and listens to my suggestions, but I should not have to know what to ask, what to look for, what to test… I should not have to figure out how to verify the results of lab work, etc.
I imagine this is not isolated to our experiences…
4 girls I coached in the past year all had similar experiences, all with different doctors. You are being the best advocate for her you can be. Continue to seek consults until you find someone who is thorough. I think that is all we wish for in a doctor. Not being blown off as nothing major.
Just to share another similar story, I had two girls with 9 and 11 ferritin, Most labs are low under 12 -14, and IV’s from hematologist likely isn’t covered unless under 10. 9, 11, 12, 17, anything under 40 to me is performance inhibiting, and considering the large range of ferritin scale, I’m equally as frustrated doctors don’t understand this.
Hope it all sorts out soon.
Yes, it is amazing how a profession can have so many that are, in my opinion, negligent in their duties, while at the same time taking huge amounts of $$ from their patients/insurance/government. Look how many re-peat visits, different Dr.'s, blood tests etc. were done that all should have been done at the very first visit.
I don’t understand how such a profession does not have standard protocol that first has to be followed, for each Dr. visit… these issues are dealt with 1000’s of times each day all over the world, but, each visit by many of these “doctors” is plainly unscientific.
Obviously, I have not had any medical training, yet, I had no trouble finding what symptoms matched ailments, and how each might relate to someone who trains regularly.
It was not difficult to find what blood tests that might need to be done, and what to look for in each blood test…
Of course, it takes a professional to comprehend this, but to not even get to the first step and get blown off, in my opinion, by a doctor with too much ‘ego’, not by facts, is negligence and unprofessional conduct in my opinion, as these people have the Lives of the patients they see as their responsibility…
Again, what would the blood tests have shown a month earlier, in early June, when I first asked and ‘K’ was only given a basic blood test? What were the thyroid and adrenal levels then?
And to top it off, the most recent… to be told, Not by the Dr. who ‘K’ had just had an appointment with about the blood labs a week prior, but by a ‘dietitian’ that there were issues with the thyroid and adrenal fatigue!!!
The hematologist said that if iron supplements are causing constipation, nausea or other discomfort, the insurance will pay for it if prescribed.
The low iron by itself, at the moment, is probably having the least impact on ‘K’, as compared to the mononucleosis infection and thyroid/adrenal fatigue issues, which are probably having the most… the iron deficiency may have a compound effect overall.
I feel for you. Two stories (TL; DR - Doctors not diagnosing broken bones)
In a class I was teaching last year, one Thursday, two boys collided and one of the fell down and the other landed on him. The one who was landed on said his arm hurt, so I asked him what happened, did a quick squeeze test on the bone on either side of where it hurt, and after a 20-30sec exam/discussion, told him he’d almost certainly broken his arm and he should have his parents take him for X-Rays. I told the parents the same thing. He can back the next day with no cast, and told me they told him they were going to X-Ray it after school today (Friday). He came back on Monday with no cast, and he told me they told him to come back on Monday if it still hurt; they didn’t X-Ray it on Friday. I called his parents and re-iterated what I’d told them Thursday morning. He was gone Tuesday morning, and showed up Tuesday afternoon with a fresh cast from that morning, because he’d broken his arm. A doctor got paid on Thursday and Friday by the government to do sweet fuck all, and somehow miss an obvious break.
I also broke my ankle 2 years ago. I sprained it on the outside, but when trying to stand up, felt sharp pain on the inside of my ankle that also radiated up the tibia. I went to a doctor at the clinic my doctor works (she wasn’t there), described the injury and pain, and he tried to send me home with instructions to ice. I was insistent for an X-Ray. I got an X-Ray at the ER, then was told by the ER doctor there was no break. Two days later, my doctor’s office calls me up and tells me it’s broken - I should come in. Not only one, but two fractures in my ankle!
I see we suffer the same ‘health care’ issues… again, it’s so amazing this can happen with such high costs…most of these types of ‘diagnosis’ are absolute, and should be easily and quickly remedied.
My poor wife had 2 such instances…
First, she broke her foot while on vacation… waited till next day when we got back to see her regular Dr. (she is very stubborn), it is quite swollen by then, her doctor takes an x-ray with an ancient x-ray machine and could clearly see the breaks in the foot bones and refers her to a foot Dr. to set it… saying that he has new equipment to better treat her.
Went strait to the foot Dr. who took x-rays on using new equipment and claimed that the swelling was too high to see the break… I told him her Dr. had no problem, had gotten a clear x-ray on her old machine… and all he did was give me a dirty look and repeated… come back when the swelling goes down.
Came back a couple days later, told the same thing again… then after 10 days went by, they said it was ‘healed’ and nothing they could do!
Her foot healed wrong, she has had on-going foot issues ever since!
Second issue… as I said, my wife is very stubborn, for her to complain about pain, it is serious, and if she wakes me up in the middle of the night telling me to take her to the hospital because of stomach pain, it is very serious.
This happened 3 times over about a 5 week period.
I took her to the emergency room each time… each time they would supposedly do ‘tests’, then eventually give her a ‘popsicle’ and then send her home telling her it was “GAS” each time…
The third time this happened, we were there for about 3 hours and it was about 8am when they sent her home… I told her, we are going straight to your regular Dr., this isn’t “GAS”… went to her Dr., she sat my wife on the table, put her hand on her side, looked at my wife and said, “your gall bladder needs to be removed”… sent her to a specialist for that, had it removed… never another problem… she was also no longer lactose intolerant.
‘K’ wants to become a Dr. and for the life of me, with all that I see wrong with the profession, I don’t understand how only half of the students that finish pre-med ever even get to go on to medical school… from who I see practicing medicine now, how can this be true, if these are the best and brightest?
Update on K’s progress since last posts above:
After being diagnosed with Mononucleosis, with enemia/low ferritin/Thyroid issues/ other issues all tied to the Mono infection, I took ‘K’ completely out of sports for about a 3 month period.
No workouts at all, no weights, nothing… just lots of rest, healthy eating and recovery/recuperation.
In early summer, because of her fully unknown health issues, she was unable to sprint and she begged to be able to still compete in meets, running in the 800m instead, which she has always planned on working up to the 800m, but because of the issues she wanted to change now, even though I tried explaining to her that she had not trained for that distance, thus, her training for this coming season is 400m/800m, moving up to the 800m distance.
In late Fall, K’ started a GPP program, based on Charlie’s GPP program… lots of hill runs.
After about 6 or so weeks of the GPP, ‘K’ worked to a 400m/800m SPP program I patched together from what she had done in the past and from other programs.
The first 4 weeks or so, these were her SPP program workouts:
Monday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
20m/30m/40m/50m/60m/150m ladder runs @ 95%, jog back recovery, repeat in reverse order.
Weights
Tuesday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
Charlie’s Big Circuit Tempo run
Wednesday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
4 x 300m @ 95% w/15 minute recovery between runs
Weights
Thursday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
5-6 mile tempo run
Friday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
4 x 600m
Weights
Saturday:
2 mile run
Drills
3 x 4 x 85m Hill runs @ 95%, steep 15% grade
Sunday:
OFF
I then modified her SPP program to this:
Monday:
(1) mile warm-up
Drills
20m/30m/40m/50m/60m/150m ladder runs @ 95%, jog back recovery, repeat in reverse order.
Weights
Sprint EMS Session
Tuesday:
(1) mile warm-up
Drills
Charlie’s Big Circuit Tempo run
Ultra Endurance EMS Session
Wednesday:
2 mile warm-up
Drills
4 x 600m @ 95% w/15 minute recovery between runs
Weights
Sprint EMS Session
Thursday:
(1) mile warm-up
Drills
Charlie’s Big Circuit tempo run
Ultra Endurance EMS Session
Friday:
(1) mile warm-up
Drills
4 x 1000m w/ 15 minute recovery
Saturday:
(1) mile warm-up
Drills
3 x 4 x 85m Hill runs (same steep 15% graded hill)
Sunday:
OFF
I tried to work in the distance first, then with the rest, as somewhat short to long approach.
She last worked to this 12 week program about 2 weeks ago, as High School track has now started.
As I added in the longer runs and EMS sessions, I dropped the weights from 3 days/week to 2 days/week, lowered the 2-mile warm-up to 1-mile and replaced the 5-6 mile day with Charlie’s Big Circuit tempo run.
As you can imagine, ‘K’ had lost a huge amount of fitness and it took some time to get back into shape.
She had wanted to run on her schools cross country team, but of course unable to.
We have big hopes for a great season even though she is starting from behind and quite late at that.
Thanks for posting! Hope this spring season is a great one. Set backs don’t have to mean the end, but just a hurdle to move on to the next big thing!
Thanks for the support ESTI, you have been a great help over the past few years.
Even though her training was late and somewhat lacking, she is responding very well.
During the second week of High School track (2nd week of March), the coaches had K run with some boys on 2 different days of 300m Auto Timed trials. She said she did not run her best, as the boys could not keep up with her and everyone was laughing at them making it hard to be serious. First 300m she ran 41.9, second she ran 41.7.
She is excited and confident in her upcoming season.
I posted in another thread K’s first 400m of the season (ran yesterday):
http://community.charliefrancis.com/showthread.php?22741-K-s-400m-800m-2015-HS-Senior-Year-progression&p=251274#post251274
Congrats on the performances so far Rich. It sure is a lot easier to run fast when your biochemistry isn’t working against you. Good job getting that stuff sorted out!
Thanks T… I also appreciate the help you have given, enjoyed all the phone conversations and especially meeting with you last Fall.
Posted this in another thread in “My Training Journal”, but will add here also:
Re: K’s 400m/800m 2015 HS Senior Year progression
Spring break for the past week so no competition to report. She has had regular practice Monday thru Saturday and I changed her lifting to 3 days this past week and will now lift 2 days a week until closer to the end of season.
K is very excited to compete in her next meets in the coming weeks. This past Saturday her coach had her run a 600m time trial by herself (she is the only 400/800m runner on team)
Her time was 1:35.00 (auto timed).
We have traveled to a couple different DII universities that interest K in our state (looking at pre-med) trying to get athletic/other scholarship… getting down to the wire.
1:35 is flying. If she can finish, should be 2:10, for sure sub 2:15 and shouldn’t have trouble getting a spot on a college team. Might just be what teams still have money left. If they have a need in 400/800 types, they may come up with it. Some may want her to run cross country to. Most Big 10 schools 800m girls ran 2:10-2:15. I would say a 56 400 would make it better.
K had planned on running for her high schools cross country team last fall, but was unable to due to spending the fall recovering from her previous illness. She placed 5th at 4A State Championships both 9th and 10th grade with her schools team, but tried to limit her distance training/running.
In the past, this has been a very competitive State in the middle distances in both high school and college. Last year,
one of the schools K would like to go to won the womens NCAA DII National title.
Yes, we were told if she got her 400m down to 56, that would get the $$. Neither are looking at her now as an 800m runner until she gets under 2:17, then that will also be a consideration for $$. The biggest issue now is time.
It drives me crazy some of the time requirements, especially in distance events. This spread sheet are the middle distance results from a few D1 Midwestern colleges. Notice their HS 800m times and their progressions over the years. I didn’t add the year they ran the HS time, though.
I did some more analysis of the top schools too. It’s interesting the progressions you find
I hope for her sake she can find money, but often not getting it right away leaves for room to get it later on potentially. Although money helps from the parents side, it’s not always the best fit for the runner. With my current girl, we had looked at several schools and their approaches were not very similar. She is a very low mileage girl (less than 40 most of this year) and schools had more of a 5k/10k focus to training, this was not going to help her for several years. Few girls can be competitive D1 5k/10k runners on 50 miles a week.
Posted this in My Training Journal thread today:
Re: K’s 400m/800m 2015 HS Senior Year progression
The couple of meets up to this point have had at least 25 MPH sustained winds, with up to 40 MPH gusts… and of course, nice calm weather leading up to and after meets
FINALLY a meet without a lot of wind!
One of the best annual high school meets in the northwest.
K ran her second 400m of the year today (Saturday) and even though it is early in the season, having had a short pre-comp training season (and losing 3 months to doing absolutely nothing due to illness) the training clearly agreed with her.
Last year at this very same meet and same time period, she did quite well.
Today, she bested last years 400m time at this meet by a full 2 seconds and even a new PR of 57.38!
Here is a video of the 400m event (Lane #2, wearing red top/blue shorts):