I have one goto source to check my performance when it comes to running. Within 48 hours of running a 100 mile race I have my bloodwork drawn. This let's me know what is happening internally. After my first 100 in April 2009 I was a mess from the race and that prompted the bloodwork request by my doctor. Well I had a lot of abnormal readings over the three pages. The one that stood out the most was the CPK. Basically, this number indicates when your body begins to eat muscle to survive. The goal is to be under 250 IU/L. Well the I had hit just over 5100 IU. He looked over at me and sternly said do not ever run over 26.2 miles again. I was crushed.
A few months later I ignored the advice and ran another 100 mile. This time I scored 3800 IU. Subsequently, each time I did another race my number continued to drop. In November 2011 now nine races later my test was just under 1900 IU. Yesterday I headed up to see my progress on improving the number yet another time. This bloodwork was for the Massanutten 100 just recently. We sat down and he looked up calmly stating, "I can't believe you." Now I am all nervous about what is going to happen. " Your CPK is 244," he replied. Shock to both of us!
After talking about the changes I made in training this year. He concluded that the personal training sessions were the source to moving the number so drastically. Each session was teaching my body how to handle those intense moments more efficiently. On top of that I had ran three 50 km races in the six weeks up to the blood test too.
Overall, I had an almost perfect three pages of results. The only metric I was abnormal was my red blood count that just missed the mark. So now it appears my body can not tell the difference from sitting around watching tv or running a 100 mountainous miles. I will choose to run any weekend over tv, lol.
Thank you to Cytomax too. They have for four years help me improve my fueling during training and racing.
Here is the scientific breakdown of CPK:
A few months later I ignored the advice and ran another 100 mile. This time I scored 3800 IU. Subsequently, each time I did another race my number continued to drop. In November 2011 now nine races later my test was just under 1900 IU. Yesterday I headed up to see my progress on improving the number yet another time. This bloodwork was for the Massanutten 100 just recently. We sat down and he looked up calmly stating, "I can't believe you." Now I am all nervous about what is going to happen. " Your CPK is 244," he replied. Shock to both of us!
After talking about the changes I made in training this year. He concluded that the personal training sessions were the source to moving the number so drastically. Each session was teaching my body how to handle those intense moments more efficiently. On top of that I had ran three 50 km races in the six weeks up to the blood test too.
Overall, I had an almost perfect three pages of results. The only metric I was abnormal was my red blood count that just missed the mark. So now it appears my body can not tell the difference from sitting around watching tv or running a 100 mountainous miles. I will choose to run any weekend over tv, lol.
Thank you to Cytomax too. They have for four years help me improve my fueling during training and racing.
Here is the scientific breakdown of CPK:
No comments:
Post a Comment