{"id":153,"date":"2008-08-26T17:15:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T00:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/?p=153"},"modified":"2008-08-26T17:15:36","modified_gmt":"2008-08-27T00:15:36","slug":"hood-to-coast-2008-prelude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"Hood to Coast 2008 — Prelude"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uno, dos, tres… catorce!<\/em>
\nHello, hello… \u00a1Hola!
\nI’m at a place called Vertigo.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What, pray tell, do the lyrics of a U2 song have to do with running the Hood-to-Coast relay<\/a>?\u00a0 Nothing, however, the song title is the same as the condition that plagued me during the race.<\/p>\n

Let me back up a bit.<\/p>\n

Remember the dizziness of which I spoke<\/a> during North Olympic?\u00a0 While I suspect it was due to dehydration, my internal gyroscopes had been off for about a month prior.\u00a0 It never felt like full-on vertigo; rather, I would often feel light-headed when moving my head around quickly.\u00a0 The sensation would come and go, but it started to get progressively worse the middle of July.<\/p>\n

To my surprise, it did not affect my running, not even during a particularly tough BUAL\u2122 workout.\u00a0 The next morning, however, I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride.\u00a0 I still made it to my yoga session, but during one position where I lifted my arm and turned my head toward it, I experienced a violent jolt of vertigo.\u00a0 I left class immediately, canceled my cook date, booked an appointment with my doctor and stayed in bed for most of the day.<\/p>\n

The next morning my symptoms were gone; I didn’t even feel the slightest bit dizzy.\u00a0 My doctor did a preliminary check, then recommended I make an appointment with an audiologist.\u00a0 (She didn’t think I required an MRI just yet, as most likely it’s a condition called benign paroxysmal positioning vertigo<\/a>, or BPPV).\u00a0 I saw the audiologist August 1, and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the results were inconclusive.\u00a0 Considering I no longer felt any dizziness, I wasn’t concerned.<\/p>\n

But then I went off the wagon.<\/p>\n

My darling and I limit our alcohol intake in the weeks leading up to a race, avoiding it altogether for at least one week prior.\u00a0 But in the days after my BQ<\/a> I was in a celebratory mood, so we bought a magnum of wine the night before I was to leave for Salem for Hood-to-Coast.\u00a0 We had no intentions of finishing the darn thing, but as the night wore on we found ourselves pouring one glass after another.\u00a0 As I drifted off on the couch my darling eased a half glass of wine from my hand (I believe it was my fifth).\u00a0 Soon after I stumbled to bed.<\/p>\n

I awoke about 1 a.m. with the familiar roller-coaster sensation.\u00a0 Each time I turned over I felt the entire room move.\u00a0 I hoped the feeling would diminish come morning, but to no avail.\u00a0 I somehow managed to pack my bags for my trip, but had to pay tribute to the porcelain god a couple of times.\u00a0 My darling suggested I cancel, but I couldn’t let my teammates down.\u00a0 Besides, it wasn’t as if I’d be cramped in a van and asked to run three separate legs for a total of 14+ miles over a period of 28 hours on little sleep.<\/p>\n

Oh crap.<\/p>\n

Fortunately I had made the wise decision to travel by train to Salem, which meant I could sleep most of the way.\u00a0 My gyroscopes were still wonky, but I could function.\u00a0 In fact, I even made my way to the dining area three cars away while the train was moving.\u00a0 (Then again, perhaps it was stopped and the vertigo simply made it seem like it was moving).<\/p>\n

Our team captain, Kris, picked me up at the station and I immediately fessed up to my condition.\u00a0 I felt pretty stupid considering I could have avoided it by not drinking so much damn wine.\u00a0 It would be one thing to have a running injury, but to be dizzy due to over consumption?\u00a0 Inexcusable.<\/p>\n

That evening I met the rest of my teammates and realized I was on a fairly competitive team (they placed every year).\u00a0 I was somewhat intimidated as they seemed to be a bunch of Deena Kastors, but they welcomed me wholeheartedly.\u00a0 I declined a glass of wine and headed to bed early, hoping my dizziness would be gone by morning.<\/p>\n

So much for high hopes.<\/p>\n

While I felt much better, I was by no means over it.\u00a0 Since Kris had to work I helped myself to some breakfast and hung out in my room reading.\u00a0 I also Googled home remedies for BPPV, thinking I could lessen the effects by the time I had to run (Internet self diagnosis is ALWAYS a good idea).\u00a0 I performed the Brant-Daroff maneuvers<\/a> on my bed, keeping my fingers crossed there wasn’t a nanny-cam watching over me (I’m sure Kris and her family would think me crazy).<\/p>\n

The true test would be to run, so I strapped on my running shoes and headed out into the neighborhood.\u00a0 As feared, my surroundings jumped all over the place as I ran, but I didn’t feel I’d fall over.\u00a0 I ran 5K at an 8:36 pace, which was faster than my overall estimated pace for Hood-to-Coast.\u00a0 I figured I was good to go.\u00a0 After all, it wasn’t like I’d be running my first leg in the dark with my only illumination coming from a weak headlamp.<\/p>\n

Oh crap.<\/p>\n

Next up: Hood-to-Coast race report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uno, dos, tres… catorce! Hello, hello… \u00a1Hola! I’m at a place called Vertigo. What, pray tell, do the lyrics of a U2 song have to do with running the Hood-to-Coast relay?\u00a0 Nothing, however, the song title is the same as the condition that plagued me during the race. Let me back up a bit. Remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[33,32,34],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness-musings","category-race-reports","tag-hood-to-coast","tag-race-report","tag-vertigo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}