It wasn’t until I was in the back of Kelly’s car as she zipped through the winding roads of Cuchara that I realized something was wrong.
I got such bad car sickness that I felt car sick for five days after that. And normally, I’m fine in cars. I hate boats, but cars are just fine. For five days, I couldn’t train. Too much movement made me dizzy and then nauseous. It was like a 5-day hangover. What I’d been dealing with the past several months finally came to a head.
At the beginning of the year, I needed to figure out why I always felt like shit. I finally got to a point where I no longer wanted to deal with it. To stop covering it up with Ibuprofen or caffeine. I wanted to know why I’d wake up tired after 8-9 hours of sleep. Why I’d wake up and go to sleep with a headache. Why I’d feel dizzy then nauseous throughout the day. Why I’d have mini bouts of vertigo every day. Having anxiety and depression on top of all of that didn’t help.
I had my blood tested. Twice. Everything came back normal. I did a sleep study that showed no signs of sleep apnea. I paid $500 for an MRI to see if the brain tumor grew back. it showed nothing. All my doctor knows how to do is prescribe pills. I told her I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to find the root of the problem, not mask the symptoms. All my tests were coming back normal. I was so deeply frustrated just like I was 15 years ago. When I first tried to figure out why I have daily headaches.
After copious amounts of research, I picked up the book, Heal Your Headache by David Buchholz. He suggests an elimination diet to rule out known trigger foods. I started that a few weeks ago. Caffeine seems to be the culprit. Since eliminating caffeine (which sucked), I’ve noticed a decrease in dizziness, nausea, and vertigo. I miss coffee and Red Bull. I also don’t like feeling like shit, so I guess I need to pick one. The hardest part about this diet is that I shouldn’t be having eggs or tofu, which are my primary sources of protein. I don’t want to have beans for every meal so we’ll see how this goes.
I’ve been looking into functional medicine doctors and it’s insane how expensive they are. $200-$300 per session. How is anyone supposed to afford this? I’m trying to do as much on my own as I can before going to one. I’m trying out Parsley Health because it’s a little less expensive ($179/month). You get 5 doctor e-visits, can access everything online, and it seems pretty easy to do.
I met with one of Parsley Health’s Health Coaches and after thirty minutes of explaining everything I’ve already done, what I’m currently doing, and the nuances of headaches, she said, “You’re going to be a tough nut to crack.”
I know this. I’ve had a headache every day since about 2005. That’s 16 years. I’m realizing right now that I’ve had headaches for the majority of my life. This is 5,840-something headaches. Every fucking day.
At the end of 2020, I was feeling very “meh” about racing. The whole year I didn’t miss it. I enjoyed not getting my teeth knocked in by racers half my age. Not dealing with all the bullshit that came with pedal RACING and BRAC and transphobes and unequal payouts and the toxic nature that is Colorado road racing.
COVID was sort of a blessing in disguise. I know it’s very privileged to say when hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives to it. For me, it forced me to slow down and look around me. It showed me who my friends were and who were really just acquaintances.
Not racing was a breath of fresh air. I started putting my family first, and I realized that this level of racing should be fun. I shouldn’t be dreading it and I shouldn’t hate myself afterward if I didn’t get a top 3 placement.
And it helped me realize a lot of that racing was for external validation. I thought (still do) that if I didn’t win, I was a loser. I didn’t realize how fucked up that thinking was and how detrimental it was to my self-esteem. I’ve had my shit rocked yearly for the past few years. To finally be in a place where I could focus on becoming a better person, employee, spouse, sister, and daughter was good for me.
And then when 2021 hit, I was on three different teams: The Bikery for mountain biking, Flow Formulas for road, and Revolution Velo for Zwift. I was more motivated to race. The scene was still lackluster to me, but having teams there to support me made the scene worth dealing with. I planned on racing mostly mountain bike to prepare for Leadville. Then stick to road races since they were the longest option. I had my training plan set through August and I had all my races picked out.
And then the first road race came, and I wasn’t feeling well. I assumed it was temporary. That it wasn’t much different from previous years. And then another road race came, and I didn’t feel well.
It finally reached a point where I had to stop what I was doing (training for Leadville) and get serious (even more so) about my health.
So, at this point, I’m not signed up for any races and now I question my identity as an athlete. At the same time, I’m like, “who gives a shit?” No one cares how you identify as much as you do. Plenty of people I’ve spoken to also feel “meh” about returning to racing. Some realize that they didn’t have a ton of fun racing. Speaking as a white, ciswoman, I feel like the Colorado racing scene is pretty toxic. It’s also just my experience. I can’t speak for anyone else.
This is all to say that I want to go back to racing, but my health has to come first. Because, without that, I won’t be able to do anything. I share this, not for sympathy, but to let someone else know that if they’re struggling through health issues that it’s okay. It’s okay to take a step back from competing to dial in your health. That it does take strength to admit there’s a problem and to focus your efforts on resolving it instead of wishing it away, instead of caffeine and ibuprofen’ing it away.
Amateur racing will always be there. But you only have one body and it can only take so much.
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