Null results

Navigating ambiguity in the search for clarity.

Photo: Callie Cooper

Leadville 100 was supposed to be fun. Leadville 100 was supposed to be a day out doing what I love. Leadville 100 was supposed to be an opportunity to explore questions about my place in this sport. Instead, I got none of those things and am walking away with more uncertainty than before the race began.

I knew going into Leadville that the timing wasn’t ideal in terms of my menstrual cycle. Race week coincided with my late luteal phase which can be absolutely debilitating to me as I suffer from PMDD (Premenstrual dysphoric disorder). This has gotten worse and worse over the past few years which is normal as women move into perimenopause and experience hormonal shifts. On the Monday before the race, I felt amazing. On Tuesday, day 24-ish of my cycle, I felt pretty awful. PMDD makes it feel like the lights have gone out on my fitness. I go from feeling super fit to almost inert. I am exhausted, I have muscle aches and pains, my sleep is shit, I have a hard time breathing, my guts don’t work. Heck, walking up the stairs feels like I am dragging 1000 lbs behind me. On top of that, I feel apathetic, depressed and generally disengaged. I start to hate the things I love, my confidence flies right out the window. PMDD is like PMS on steroids and there are very few interventions. And few people understand how awful it is. Research shows that 70% of women with PMDD experience suicidal ideation and 1 in 3 attempts suicide¹.

Even though I felt rough. I held out hope that an easier week, attempting good rest and time would allow it to pass. My symptoms usually occur for 5 days with a fluctuation of ok, bad and worse days. I hoped Saturday things would have abated. Instead they were much, much worse. I don’t know if the addition factor of really bad AQI on Thursday further exacerbated things as this is a known trigger for my autoimmune conditions. It is hard to know how you feel during taper since you aren’t doing normal activities and thus, sorting through that and discerning how you feel is challenging.

I felt extremely calm before the race. In hindsight, maybe too calm. I didn’t see that “calm” for what it really was: apathy. Which is a prevalent symptom with PMDD. I just thought I was ready to go. But I can see now that my usual pre-race nerves are a sign that all systems are go and energetic. Even as I stood on the start line, I felt nothing. Just dull and blank and hoping that my body and mind would come on line as I got going.

It did not. From my first through my last step on the race course, every step felt forced. Lethargic, apathetic. I felt dead physically and mentally. This was not fun, this was nothing. As I made my way down towards Turquoise Lake, I hated running. I hated myself. I hated my body. I hated everything. This was misery. I hated that I knew that this was not in my head and yet I was powerless to fix things. I was determined to just persist through and not resist how I was feeling. And then I tripped and slammed into the ground, tripping with the same leg that I had just spent 5 weeks healing after falling before I was supposed to race High Lonesome. I absolutely battered myself. My forearm and knee were bleeding. My leg felt off and cramping. I picked myself up and desperately searching for a reason to take each step. Instead, I got tears. Every time my friend Bob Sweeney, who was in the little pack behind me, said anything, I would try and respond but get choked up. After that, every time I saw a familiar face on course, I would try and hold back sobs (sometimes fully failing to do so).

By the time I saw my crew for the first time at mile 23, I felt like I was trudging through mud. Nothing was working. Nothing was changing. I knew I was not going to finish this race and that broke my heart. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”. I could not change this but that provides me with little serenity or acceptance. I felt despair for every step and despair for stopping. It is unfair to have to deal with this and I don’t want to. I don’t want to work so freaking hard to be at the top of my game and then have that fitness and mental health vanish seemingly overnight only to return a few days later. I hate that I am afraid to proceed with my race schedule because some of the races fall in the same phase of my cycle. I hate that there are so few answers and resources for women with PMDD. I hate that this condition makes me hate and question myself.

I thought Leadville would shine some light on the questions that I was pondering. But I do not think it provided anything useful. Even in this low moment, I know I cannot take away any insight on the bigger picture. I must be careful not to. It would skew the data, it would muddy the water. If anything yesterday made me feel like I moved farther away from understanding than moving closer. I am not rushing to any conclusions. I definitively know absolutely nothing. That I am ok with. I have learned to befriend ambiguity and uncertainty, or at least tolerate it much better than my younger self.

I do not know what to do next. I am signed up for Run Rabbit 100. But it is exactly 4 weeks after Leadville meaning I could very well have the same symptoms and problems as I did yesterday. I am signed up for Javelina 100, which was my main goal in all of this, but I feel strongly that I need to rebuild some confidence in the distance before then. Failing at Leadville creates layers and feelings and fears that I now need to unpack and figure out. I don’t know what the answer is. I do know that I am going to circle back with my doctors and see what if anything we can do to mitigate this problem. I do know that I am going to research more methods to support this condition (which was recently determined by scientists to be genetically based and not in fact just in women’s heads-to which we all say, no freaking duh!).

There is no way out, just through. It is hard right now but I do know: things will change, they always do. My day will come and I very much look forward to that.

1. Women’s Mental Health