Holy Thyroid Meds, Batman!

This morning I reconfirmed--not that I needed any more confirmation--my belief that I must properly time my fast-acting thyroid med in order to have a normal workout.  I've known this for most of the almost-three-years that my hypothyroidism has been medicated--in fact, I suspect that I've used this post title before, but I'm just too lazy to go back through all my posts to check--but I still find myself continually reminded of the fact that if I don't take the meds 3-4 hours before a workout or a meet, I'll be a sluggish little lump of poo on the ice.  (Just as a reminder for those of you who might be thinking that thyroid meds are a performance-enhancing substance--they're not.  I had a few instances of being slightly over-medicated this summer when my levels were being adjusted, and the only thing worse than trying to skate with too little thyroid meds is trying to skate with too much).

Anyway, this morning we had ice time but no time trials, so I decided to do the 3K-pace interval workout that I missed out on Thursday night when I forgot my skates.  (Why, yes, I am still sore from the impromptu dryland workout that I threw together to make up for the missed ice time; thanks for asking).  I knew the med timing might be a bit of an issue; a cold and general end-of-the-week fatigue had made me resist doing my usual "set the alarm for the time I'll need to take the meds" strategy.  I figured I'd just take the meds whenever I got up, and let the timing be what it would be.  So I ended up heading out for my first set of  four "400 on/400 rest" laps less than two hours after my meds.

And I felt OK.  It was warm but super windy, so when my laps, which I had hoped would be 42-43 seconds, turned out to be high 41's and low 42's, I was satisfied.  True, I had felt like I had no power down the into-the-wind backstretch, and my usual 10-12 stroke straightaways had regressed to near-Bunny-on-Crack-level 16 to 18 strokes.  Still, I figured things were fine.

Until I got back out on the ice from my foot-warming break for set two.  By this time it was almost three hours since my meds.  Historically my second set of intervals can either be similar to my first, or a huge fatigue-induced slowdown.  Today had given no indication of which way it was leaning, so I headed into the first lap with no expectations.  I also headed into the first lap with a posse; I had picked up Mel, Inliner Boy, and Cross Boy, and they all--although they're faster than I am--were kind enough to skate behind me to let me indulge my "I have to know how fast I am without a draft" obsession.  So I led out the paceline, completed the lap, and looked at my stopwatch.

38.7

Let me repeat that.  38.7 seconds.  Exactly three seconds faster than the first lap in the first set.  It had felt like the same level of effort; I would have guessed the lap was a 41-something.  Hmm.

The remaining three laps were similar, although I backed off a bit because let's face it, 38 is not my outdoor 3K pace and these laps were supposed to be 3K pace.  By the last lap I was beginning to wonder if there was some sort of "reverse draft" effect from leading a paceline that was making me faster, so Mel and the Fast Boys obligingly dropped back so there was absolutely no chance that they were somehow making me faster.

39.4.

So clearly it was all me.  And interestingly enough, my straightaways were back down to 12 laps with the wind and 14 into the wind.  Apparently I just have a lot more power when all systems are functioning normally.  This might just be convincing enough evidence that next time I'll set the alarm and get up early, tired or not.

On another note, Mel finally got a chance to skate a mile--or at least a couple laps--in my shoes skates.  She wanted to see whether my inability to "carve" was due to me or to the skates.  Results were a bit inconclusive, and Mel, like Coach TieGuy, is capable of delivering a lot more technical information than I am capable of assimilating.  So I did a lot of "yeah, um hum" but I'm not really sure I got the whole point (Mel, you had to suspect that, right?).  I think what she was saying, though, is that I should be able to do the proper technique on my skates, but I might have to change my approach a bit.  So we'll see what happens.  In the meantime, I decided to drop my skates off to get them radiused (have the curvature of the bottom of the blade redone), so if I skate tomorrow (weather pending) it will need to be in my old skates, which could lead to a whole 'nother kind of bad technique.

Here's Mel, taking my skates for a spin:

My skates are probably thinking "oh, so this is what we're supposed to be doing!"

And that's part of the fun of skating...whether it's med timing or technique tweaks, there's always something new to learn!