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After a bit of an...extended hiatus from blogging...I thought I should sum up the craziness of this past year of running. I've experienced the highs, the lows, and everything in between. It wasn't always pretty but I've learned lots and become a stronger runner during this journey. There have been too many shenanigans to fit into one post so I'm going to just take it by season, starting with

Summer 2012

I entered this track season with big goals and even bigger determination. I wanted to

a) medal at Canadian Youth Championships

b) run some big pb's

c) get noticed by university coaches

And I accomplished none of those goals.

Training in a small town without teammates or a coach nearby has never been advantageous but I think this track season was one where I needed that support the most. After a couple months of suffering through training, dropping workouts, blood tests, and doctor's visits I finally discovered that I had serious iron-deficiency anemia.

It's almost funny when I think of the months that I spent anemic without I or my doctor picking up on it, I had pretty much every symptom in the book: My legs were heavy and tired during every run, I was exhausted all of the time, I couldn't sleep at night, I always felt freezing cold, and I couldn't focus very well in school.

By the time I went to a new doctor it was the beginning of July, I had just DNFed for the first time in my life, and my iron stores had completely bottomed out... Well that's not how I had planned out my season. My new doctor was shocked when she looked at my test results from the last few months that showed my hemoglobin, iron, and ferritin dropping yet no one had picked up on it. She put me on an iron supplement and explained that I wouldn't be able to do any running until my levels got closer to the normal range. There aren't words that can describe how tough it was for me to scrap the season. I couldn't imagine not being able to compete at my last Youth Nationals and I had no idea where I would end up for university without the results to prove myself to coaches. There was nothing I could do other than focussing on getting healthy so I took my iron supplements, ate lots of red meat, took a bit of time completely off, and then spent about a month water running before I could start doing any running at all.

That was a rough time in my running career and it wasn't fun at all but I definitely learned from it and luckily I was able to start running again in August just in time to get ready for cross country. More on that in the next post!