Setbacks

  

Looking Back

About five months ago I first started detailing my recovery here when I finally ran six (easy) miles at the semi-arbitrary pace of 10 minutes per mile. About two months after that, I was running 9 minute pace at the same effort. I had hit fifty miles in a week on a couple occasions, and had pushed the “long” run out to twelve miles. Things seemed to be going fairly well, or at least continuing to progress in the desired direction.

The entire time, though, the symptoms that had improved to the point that I could run had remained more or less “stuck” in that same place. I still suffered from headaches, neck pain, and numbness in my limbs on a daily basis. Failure to wear my neck brace when sitting down still threatened to ruin my day. Many runs, especially those at the end of a taxing day, could only be achieved after a lengthy mental battle to drag myself out the door. Often times, I lost that battle and just went to sleep instead. When I did run, the numbness and (depending on how bad the day or week had been) impaired motor control would inevitably fade, only to return all the same after the run or the next morning.

About five weeks ago I had covid again. The illness itself was a nonissue – extremely mild and leaving no lasting symptoms. In fact, after the first day or two I felt really legitimately good – My persistent neurological symptoms were reduced or absent. While this was great in a vacuum, it also forced me to confront reality – No longer could I persist under the illusion that running was having no negative impact on my symptoms, or that I was still slowly improving with time. Starting to jog again after a week and half off confirmed this, as the numbness and other symptoms came creeping back in. Certainly some of this was the result of increasing daily activity – driving, working, etc. – as well, but the fact remained that total rest had greatly moderated my symptoms, only for them to come rushing back.

So after only a few runs back, I quit again. And I bottomed out for a few days – buffalo chicken dip, Chipotle, ice cream. This emotional foray into culinary degeneracy frankly made me feel like shit, seemingly confirming that diet and food still play a large role in my symptoms as well. Since then, I’m about a week and half back on a pure beef, salmon, and salt diet. I haven’t run in that time or exercised much at all, but I feel pretty great. Normal, really. Just not normal enough to quite live a normal life yet.

Moving Forward

So what now? Well, certainly the plan is to be far more diligent with diet moving forward. My remarkable progress after experimenting with a carnivore diet and extended fasting got me close enough to functional that I could pretend everything was normal. I had started adding fruit to help with the running, and things mostly seemed good for a while. But I relaxed here and there over the following weeks – things like dairy, coffee, plantains. Things I didn’t need to be eating and things I was convincing myself weren’t causing any problems (and perhaps certain ones weren’t, I have no idea). Much like I was convincing myself running wasn’t causing any problems.

So now the plan is to double down, reset, and refocus my efforts for the next attempt. As mentioned, I’m ~10 days back on a pure carnivore diet and plan to remain that way for some time. The immediate plan, beginning tomorrow, is to undertake another extended fast. Something in the one week range again, hopefully, or maybe longer. I don’t know if I can expect such a remarkable outcome this time, as thankfully I start from a much better place. But I do hope some progress towards repairing this lasting damage can be made.

I fully expect to be one hundred percent symptom-free following the fast, as I’m already largely that way now. Then we basically hope it stays that way as I ease back in. Low and slow – Lots of hiking around, some shuffling here and there, light jogging, and so forth. Fingers crossed in a handful of weeks I’ll be running fairly regularly without any neurological symptoms impacting my ability to exercise or live my life. That’s asking a lot, of course, as I’ve been messed up for two years straight at this point and it feels almost beyond belief that it could ever really go away for good.

It is the goal, though. And more than that, it is absolutely the intent. I’ve still got a lot of racing to do…