Salted Out in Salt Lake
When you are trying to push yourself on a daily basis (and for me, that’s 3-5 hours of training most days) your limiting factors are usually NEVER what you perceive as your strong points as an athlete.
The human body is a great chain of chemical & neurological processes, co-ordination and a precise balance of water, habits & motivations. Your limiting factor is almost never something you like to think about, never something you are already good at, never the muscles that are visible upon cursory examination in the mirror.
Your limiting factor in your own astonishing chain of existence & performance is often something small and unnoticed, like weakness in part of your abs, or a hitch in your pedal stroke, a lack of strength in the small stabilizers of your legs and hips, or an imbalance in how your spine arches (this is why I have problems in the right hip-knee-ankle), or something missing in your diet that you really need. Identifying weak links is one of the things the experience of your coaches & doctors is invaluable for.
My talented slow-twitch mutant marathoner friend Carla, had most of last season completely ruined because there was not enough iron in her diet. She was quite sick before it got diagnosed, skated many PW’s (personal-worsts) and thought she was having heart trouble. That single weak link crippled everything else in her exceptional athletic chain of motion, and wiped out a season of her hard work. (note to all female athletes reading this: this is VERY common, be careful! Eat iron-rich stuff and have your ferratin levels tested occasionally)!!!
My weak link for today is that I “salted out” yesterday. When training many hours in hot weather, I sweat a LOT, I can creates puddles on the floor under a squat rack when working hard. When “salted-out” I can start to feel dizzy, weak, and suffer constant head rushes, even when relaxing around the house. For me, sometimes rest cures this, 
but through trial, error, & gastronomic whimsy I found it can ALWAYS be cured by a large bag of Sea Salt & Vinegar Kettle Chips.
Near the end of yesterday’s 3 hour ride (on my Powercranks, no less) I started cramping up, I was properly hydrated (2 tall bottles & a Gatorade), and as I was struggling up the final grades of the Avenues towards home, I was getting those dizzy disconnected feelings telling me its time for an infusion of salt. Gatorade has never prevented this, I can feel crummy eating potassium rich bananas by the bunch & still feel this way, I really need a bag of super salty chips.
Fixing weak links is a difficult job, but someone has to do it… hmmm, let me look at this bag of sea salt and vinegar nirvana, it has 5 servings, I am eating it all, so I am gobbling up 900 mg of sodium, and 2,455mg of potassium! Wow…
Oh, everyone send excellent surgery karma to John Dimon, frequent commenter on this blog, and friend to every skater who has ever loved this sport. He is going in for surgery on a torn meniscus in a few days. This “weak link” has bugged him for years, he is as good a soul as has ever been minted, and I wish him a speedy recovery.
Find your weak links, fix them, feel better, & always forge onward!
Filed under: sweat, from the coffee shop
Hey fellow readers…Andrew checked with me on this post earlier today and we ended up talking about another important diet element…I have been complaining for a while to my Tambo teammates about never having enough good bread - I eat a lot and it’s expensive - so two of them, Debbie and Alice, gave me a whole freezer-full, like 10 loaves, of bread, rolls, and bagels yesterday!! I can’t train well without it, so they basically just GAVE me good training!
Another note to female athletes, technically, the amount of iron in my diet is and was ok (I’m a vegetarian but have good things like quinoa) but didn’t know before that you can’t absorb iron with calcium, so you have to separate those two nutrients by about 3 hours. It’s best to have iron with vitamin c, too (orange juice, an orange, any cytomax left over after your workout…)
Now, of course, I am also taking feosol twice a day and a flintstones plus iron (pediatricians’ #1 choice!) and that is sllloooowly getting my ferritin up to where it should be.
When it was a bad problem last august and september, I found out a few things that you should know about getting to the right doctor or a doctor at all. It did occur to me that I could be anemic because of other friends who’d had similar problems, but my main symptom that told me something was wrong was being OUT OF BREATH ALL THE TIME, including while relaxing on the couch watching a movie. Not difficulty breathing but feeling like I was at an altitude high enough for an airplane. The oxygen was not getting to where it was supposed to. I would also get lightheaded much more easily than usual…I mean, one of the signs I was getting better was when I told Dave, “Dave! I just [stood up and] said hi to Andrew and didn’t black out!” I never noticed not having energy…who the heck notices not having something? Like I’m gonna be walking around thinking, “hmm, I should call my doctor because I don’t have knee pain”.
So, I tried calling my primary care doc’s office and explaining the problem, and the next appointment they had was nearly a month later. I knew of two things that could cause being out of breath all the time - lack of iron, which was seeming more and more doubtful as I compared symptoms with friends, and heart failure, which most 15 to 40 year olds who are not doctors don’t have all the facts on.
My doctor looked at me like I was from mars when I suggested a blood test for anemia and refused to listen to my heart. Before she would look into anything else, she had me do three separate asthma tests, each a week apart, even though I insisted that I had no trouble breathing, no allergies, and no history of asthma.
A regular ol’ blood test to see if you’re anemic will not tell you about ferritin. My hemoglobin levels were just at the low end of the range, so I had to go around for several more weeks believing (ok, more like only halfway believing) I was not anemic. I found out in mid-october, after Erica sent me to THE sports medicine doctor for female athletes here, that my ferritin was 3 instead of over 30…and that was not even when I felt my absolute worst.
Your regular primary care doctor, no matter how smart and up to date he or she is, will most likely not know to test for ferritin and might have trouble even if you ask for that test. You might have to (and should in any case) find a sports medicine doctor for female athletes.
And if you’re trying to get to the doctor and the next appointment is too far away, see if they’ll squeeze you in to check ferritin for something that sounds non-threatening…”I feel tired and sluggish” or “I just had my period and can’t get my energy back” or even “I think I’m getting a cold because my immune system seems down”.
Looking back, I also felt out of shape in July. I have enough self-confidence to to not make things up about being out of shape, but can you imagine training hard and saying “I feel out of shape”… yeah, people are going to say “No you’re not!” So trust yourself when you notice things like that.
And those kettle chips are good, by the way!
Andrew,
New photo across top is fantastic! Can’t wait to see you! Should I just call when I get into the area?
Bec
It is important to have the right balance of sodium and potassium. Too much potassium is not a good thing. Dangerous for the heart.
mom,
thanks for the worry.. I agree 100% that you are right, it is good to have a balance of sodium and potassium.. I am IN NO WAY advocating that the average desk dwelling, sedentary homo sapiens chow a whole bag of salty chips at once, it would be bad (but many do every time football is on TV, and they don’t die)
but you have to realize, I can lose 5-7 POUNDS of water in one workout… (and I sometimes work out twice a day)
the last 3 hour bike ride I did, I was 5 pounds lighter at the end of it than I was at the beginnng, and I drank 2 bottles and a gatorade bought along the way during the ride… so even drinking 40-60oz of fluid, I am sweating a lot.. I have abnormal needs for salt and potassium due to my abnormal activity levels…. this is what my homemade remedy of kettle chips adresses… I worry about the fat content, so once time I even tried eating a spoonful of salt.. yeech.. didn’t help, kettle chips do..
really, this is good for me… I would not have written my long post if I did not believe so from repeated experience.. I have applied the kettle chip rememedy at least a half dozen times…..
your crazy happy son..
[…] him this year, I need fast people to skate with. I mentioned in an earlier previous post Salted out in Salt Lake that John Dimon is having knee surgery, he went under the knife today at 11am east coast […]