Dammit, Goldilocks!

So...in the two weeks since my previous post, in which I offered the opinion that my thyroid seemed, finally, to be behaving itself, I am now finding myself once again on a Goldilocks-type quest, searching for "just right."  Fortunately I only seem to be searching for "just right" in medication timing, rather than (as I have the past three summers) searching--with my doctors help--for the right medication dosage.

Still, the quest for "just right" sucks.

Right after my previous post, I had a couple bad workouts but I attributed them to a sinus infection.  And then, two days after I finished teaching for the summer, I started on a series of three consecutive trips--which of course wreaked minor havoc with my workout schedule.  First the Hubster and I headed to the cabin to visit my parents, and also to leave the dog there, because immediately after we returned from the cabin we headed to Illinois for a (dog-free) vacation with the Hubster's side of the family.  And then, once we returned from that, I of course needed to head back up to the cabin to pick up the (very tired after spending a week with my parents' four dogs) dog.  (Incidentally, I think the dog is currently embarking on one of her epic 24-hour naps.  Seriously--she won't get up for 24 hours, not to eat, not to drink, not to go out to the bathroom.  We find ourselves checking her for breathing every so often, but we've finally learned that she just has an extremely long "recharge" time when fully depleted).

Anyway, in between trips I managed to get in a couple of skating workouts.  One, a German endurance workout (hard-easy-hard laps) very clearly had the earmarks of a "too little thyroid meds" workout.  Slow, sluggish, couldn't get going--laps that had been 47-48 seconds the first time I did this workout this year were 50-54 seconds...until the eighth, and last, set, when they were suddenly 47 seconds.  Taking 7 seconds per lap off of one's times in the fortieth through forty-eighth of forty-eight laps is not normal, and to me it means "oops, someone mistimed her thyroid meds."  Except I had timed them pretty much as I always do, so that was weird.

(If you're all filled in on the specifics of my thryoid med issues, y'all can skip this paragraph.  For anyone who might be hypo or is just wondering what I'm babbling about, here's the rundown: I take two thyroid hormones daily--a slow-acting one once a day, and a faster-acting one two to four times a day.  The faster acting one is prescribed to be taken once a day but I can't tolerate that (many people can't) so I take less of it more frequently.  And I've discovered that I need to time this med pretty precisely with my workouts or I end up with too much or (more frequently) too little.  I may not notice the "too much" or "too little" if I'm just going about my daily life, but in a workout it becomes glaringly obvious.)

So for today's interval workout, I decided to change up my med timing a bit to try to avoid the "too little" of the previous workout.  By the time I was halfway through my first warmup lap, though, I knew I had gone too far in the other direction.  As I've mentioned before, too much thyroid hormone is much worse, workout-wise, than too little.  Instead of sluggishness, I get shaky legs, instant fatigue, high heart rate, and overheating. Add this to the first 90 degree day of the year, and it all spells "quit the workout after only half of the laps."

And since the workout had been epically horrible, I decided to have my "post workout" snack consist of whatever goodies I could find in the car...which turned out to be a nice cherry-almond scone from the Grand Marais Co-op, some licorice I heisted from my mom, and a Diet Dew.  Not the best recovery food...but that's how I roll.

Or that's why I have rolls.  Whatever.

Anyway, now I need to figure out the med timing.  I'm hoping--if it doesn't rain--to do the Roll for the Roses 10K skating race on Saturday morning, and I'd really like to have the Goldilocks-o-meter end up on "just right" for that.