Horse pills
Apart from local treatment for my vision problems, which usually involves some sort of injection in the eye, I'm also taking immunosuppressants. Previously, I was injecting myself with some nasty yellow stuff called methotrexate. It was/is used for various cancer treatments, as well as autoimmune disease. In my case, it also led to significant nausea as my dose was increased. Unfortunately, it still didn't seem to do anything for me (apart from giving me a good 24-36 hours of feeling sick each week).
No more! Now I have giant pills to swallow. My doctor has taken me off the evil yellow stuff and started me on CellCept - a drug usually used to suppress the immune system of organ transplant recipients. Three weeks in and all is fairly good. In fact, I got a new steroid implant in my right eye this week and the vision cleared up in just a couple of days. If I didn't know better I'd say that the new drugs might be helping already!
The biggest problem so far is that I have to take the (giant) pills on an empty stomach: no food for 2-3 hours before the pill, no food for an hour afterwards. Really? When in the day do I go 3-4 hours without food? Needless to say, I'm having to adjust my feeding schedule and it's going to be tricky fueling big training days with this constraint. Still, if it means remission then I'm all for it.
Off-season
The best laid plans of mice and men... So that early March marathon? Not happening. The girl was the driving force there and she had to interrupt training for a number of weeks. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that she could train to get around the marathon, but it might be a miserable day running a marathon under-trained. So now she's committed to doing a marathon in 2013, but later in the year.
How does this affect my plans? Well, it means that I won't build my run distance as much over winter. Since my last run was 6 miles on snowy trails I can't say that's all bad.
Bike training is going well though. It's officially too icky and cold for outdoor rides, so I'm on the trainer three times a week. TrainerRoad is my new best friend. If you haven't heard of it, and you like to ride bikes, then you should check it out.
Swim training has been patchy, but I did another freestyle clinic with the excellent folks at Santa Fe Aquatics Club and feel like I made some good progress. Now I just have to spend some time in the water to work on really cementing my improved stroke. It's just so hard to motivate myself to swim in winter.
New-season
I have goal races! Of course, I haven't signed up for anything, but that'll come.
My season will open on April 28th with a race that I'm helping out with this year: the Atomic Man duathlon (2012 race report), which is the USAT Rocky Mountain Regional Duathlon Championship. There's a great local race series put on by Chasing3 too...However, my big 3 for the year (subject to me changing my mind):
1. Ironman 70.3 St. George, Utah (US Pro Championships) -- May 3rd
2. Tour de Los Alamos, New Mexico (this year's race report) -- TBD (June 16th?)
3. Ironman 70.3 Boulder, Colorado (this year's race report)
Then a marathon in September/October time with the girl to round out the season. I'll make a decision closer to the actual race season whether or not I'll be racing bikes in Cat 5 in 2013, aiming to cat up ASAP. Question of the season: can I get fast enough at 70.3 to qualify for the World Championship?
Winter is where I will lay my foundation. I think I stand to gain the most from investing time in the bike. By the end of January I should see my bike fitness way up on my lazy, couch-potato, post-Ironman form and hopefully start seeing real gains from structured training too. You can track my efforts on my trainerroad page.
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