Months Off - Forced Recovery & Honest Reflection

I have taken 5 weeks off regular training. This is longer than the rest I usually take after the season ends, around 2-4 weeks. I have so many thoughts, feelings, and emotions about this but first I want to explain what is factually happening in my body, to the best of my knowledge. I have never experienced this in all my years of sport, I am learning as I go. Conversations about this with my nutritionist and athlete friends have been so helpful because they share their experience and knowledge. I got my blood tested about a week into this whole ordeal after finding I wasn’t getting any more energy after a week completely off. This freaked me out. I got some of the results back by the time the last blog was posted but they haven’t been interpreted yet. Now I have all the results, and they have been interpreted by my nutritionist, and my doctor but she doesn’t count because, respectfully, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

The most notable thing about my results was how low my cortisol was. It was 6.8, which is considered “normal” on the 6.2-19.4 scale. I asked my nutritionist, Dr. Cherrelyn Seegers, her to put it in laymen’s terms what was going on in my body, “The main factor is the low cortisol. The state of low cortisol didn’t just happen; this is from long term stress with inadequate recovery backed by the right nutrients.” This was a shock to me as I thought I was doing a good enough job to never let this happen. Turns out I have so much to learn. Another result that was low, but “normal” was my ferritin. My ferritin was 14 on a scale of 10.8 to 158. For athletes who are training hard, everything should be as perfect as you can get it. A lot of athletes try to get up to 150 or more! Might I mention that my doctor, who ordered these tests, claimed that they were both normal and I had nothing to worry about. My progesterone and estrogen were also low, which is normal at the end of your period cycle (I was at the end of my cycle). Unfortunately, that test doesn’t matter because I have been on hormonal birth control for 5 years. Meaning I don’t have a natural cycle; I don’t ovulate. I feared that because my implant was expiring at the end of July 2025, the synthetic estrogen slowly being released into my body was running out and made me feel exhausted for not having that extra boost anymore, further revealing the imbalance of my low cortisol. I got my implant taken out on Monday, July 7th. It will take months for my body to rebalance. I am hopeful that with rest, retesting blood, and paying attention to how I feel, I will come out stronger! So, I have 4 big things happening: Low Cortisol, Ferritin, and Vitamin D. I’ll shyly add progesterone and estrogen to the list too. Something that these tests don’t show is how I am doing on a daily basis.

I am realizing how important getting your blood tested really is for digging deeper into health and athletic performance.

How one feels in one’s body is just as important. I am exhausted. I have days where I have a good day of energy, but I always wake up tired, have a pretty severe afternoon crash, and go to bed worn out. Even if I didn’t do anything all day. I want to do a little every day but some days I am too worn out to go through the mental gymnastics of taking all the steps to swim, bike, gym, or run. I will try to carve out time and intention for my body like doing an easy yoga practice instead. I am trying to just do what feels good! Something I truly lost track of in my deep, persistent endeavor of trying to reach my goals. (I think this fact is one reason I’ve gotten to this point, doing workouts I maybe shouldn’t have because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be dedicated and undedicated athletes don’t deserve athletic success). The current lack of activity also brings up unkind thoughts about my body. However, I recognize that this is just a phase, and my body is perfect when working out 15 hours a week or not. It feels weird not to train so much but this time has given me time to reflect on the mental and physical side of stress I have forced myself to get to this point. I realized how toxic my relationship with training had become.

I went on a bike ride about 2 weeks into this hoping to just relax and have fun but I realized many negative thoughts I had when I am riding and how many exhausting it really is: “I should be in aero bars right now”, “my legs feel like shit pushing little power, how am I ever going to reach my goals”, and “I can fill my belly hitting my legs when I ride, I am too big to be a professional triathlete.” Writing these words out sting but they are my thoughts when I ride and run. When I want to just ride for the raw fun of it, like when I started. I am endearingly eager to feel more rested to get outside and start riding my bike for the pure fun of it! While I hope others have never gotten to a point where their workouts feel like a prison instead of a release, I also hope I am not alone.

Two weeks and two days later, my birth control has caused me to have a heavy and some intense emotional episodes after getting my implant out. I don’t plan on getting back on hormonal birth control. I went to barre3 class this week, which is like pilates without the reformer. My legs were so sore the next day and in turn, I was exhausted the entire day. I had done too much… but it felt so good to be sore. As if doing something to improve my strength is what I need right now. I am learning that line I need to ride for the next couple of months; doing enough to maintain it but not too much to set myself back.

My Nexplanon (birth control implant) exit point bruising! It was pretty tender for about a week. I was numbed for the procedure, felt some pinching but was fine.

Going forward, I will have some changes to my racing schedule, professional life, and doing some inner healing. I will not race my next Olympic triathlon in August, I will “race” my open water channel crossing of the Columbia River, and I will most likely not race my 70.3 in September. I am going to get my CNA (certified nursing assistant) in the month of August and go back to school for prerequisites for a Radiology Program. I feel good about making this decision because the CNA job will provide a consistent income, while going back to school will make me feel good about working toward a bigger income and career that I will enjoy! And honestly, I miss being busy and using my brain. In regard to sport, I plan to let my nagging ankle injuries and various foot tendonitis heal, continue to work with my nutritionist to figure out what I did wrong and learn from my mistakes, and find the fun of movement again while attaching a happy feeling to training even when it hurts!

I will continue to be disciplined in this time just as I have been in years past with my goals in the forefront of my time, it will just look a little different right now. I like to call it disciplined rest.