Blood, Sweat & Gears: Celtman training through the Menopause.

It's 2am, and I'm vaguely awake... struggling to get back to sleep.  I've woken to find that my hair and my pillow are soaked in sweat.  It's not hot, but I'm tossing & turning, trying to get comfy, trying to ignore the damp pillow... It feels like the middle of July... but it's February.  Yuk.

I'm standing on the poolside, speaking to a young lifeguard about something or other, and I suddenly become aware that I'm bleeding... far more heavily than normal.  I make my excuses and make it to my locker and the ladies toilet in time to catch the blood before it makes it out of my swimsuit and down my leg.  My periods used to happen like clockwork, predictable and manageable. But not any more. 

It's day 3 of a 7-day stint off work, and I should be training.  But I feel flat, low, a bit depressed if I'm honest. I feel tearful for no reason at all.  Is it the short days?  Or am I fatigued?  I make myself get out on my bike in the wind, and gradually begin to feel a little better.  

If you're new to my blog, I'm a 49, soon-to-be-50-year-old woman based in the Scottish Highlands.  I have a full time job as an Ambulance Technician with the Scottish Ambulance Service, and I'm also an athlete.  It still feels odd to say that, but I'm training on average 8-15 hours per week there's no getting away from it.  

I'm also - and there's no escaping this, either - going through the Perimenopause.  I'm technically not 'Menopausal' yet, because that simply refers to a moment in time when a woman hasn't had a period for 12 months.  So I guess in reality that refers to... well, hardly anyone really. We're all either 'Premenopausal' (nowhere near it); 'Perimenopausal' (right in the thick of it), or 'Postmenopausal', (past the point of 12 months, but could still be having symptoms aaaages later). 

So why am I writing this?  

Well, I'm currently training for Celtman.  If you've read my blog before you'll be well versed, but if don't know anything about it, watch this: 

So yes, it's a big day out.  A 3km swim, 202km bike, and a mountain marathon.  Luckily for me, it's virtually on my doorstep, and it's a race I've been familiar with and a part of for a long time.  

So why does my menopausal status matter?  Well, for a lot of reasons, I think.  

It matters because I sleep less well.  

It matters because my periods have become unpredictable. 

It matters because my GP was clued-up enough to prescribe Estrogen gel rather than patches because he realised that exercising would sweat them off or swim them off.  How many do that? What an absolute legend. 

It matters because I sometimes feel shit. 

It matters because over the last couple of years and next few years, my hormones, bones and muscles will change in ways that are still not fully understood, due to lack of research. 

It matters because we're talking about menopause more, but not about exercising during it, with all that brings with it. 

It matters because these are all things that could very easily be barriers to me exercising at all, or even doing the tiny amount of exercise that fulfils government recommendations, let alone training 8-15 hours per week for a looooooong and demanding event. 

It matters because women don't exercise enough, and because still, on the start line of long, hard events, we are in the massive minority. 

Yes, that is improving.  But we're nowhere near equality in terms of women exercising as much as men, or feeling they can enter and complete events.  

To my knowledge, amongst the thousands of books out there on training, there is only one on training through menopause: 

I don't have the answer to the lack of equality or lack of research. But I can stand up and say 'I'm Perimenopausal, it's hard and it's stressful, and it makes training more difficult & complicated. Some days it's shit, to be honest, but I'm doing this thing anyway. 

Why?  

Because it makes me feel better, here and now. It helps me manage my perimenopause symptoms.  If I'm having a rough day, a down day, if I go for a run or a bike ride, even if I struggle at first it will make me feel better by the time I get home.  

Because it will protect me from harm in the longer term.  Lifting weights, getting stronger, doing weight-bearing exercise will strengthen my bones and help to protect me from the Osteoporosis that made both of my Grandmothers shrink and get weaker as they got older.  

Because it will help me live a longer and healthier life.  

I said I work for the Ambulance Service. For the avoidance of doubt this next story is invented but is based on my own experience... 

It's 8am, and I'm on day shift.  I've had my breakfast & morning coffee, we signed on at 7am, and the radio goes for our first 'job' of the day.  We're going to an 80-year-old lady who has fallen getting out of bed, and her husband is unable to get her up.  She's not far away, so with the lights & sirens on we get there in just a few minutes.  

She's still on the floor when we arrive, and we do all our checks.  Betty (my Nanna's name) is uninjured, and hasn't been on the floor long.  We get her up, but she has been unable to do that herself, and her family are worried.  I hear conversations mentioning the idea of a care home.  She is able to move around unaided with her walking frame as she normally does, but it's clear that her mobility is worsening with age, as is her quality of life. 

Betty is a fictional character. I've used my own Nanna's name.  

I'm doing this because I want to be able to get off the floor and be independent when I'm 80.  I want to buck the trend of women being told they mustn't be strong, they mustn't have muscles.  

As women we've been told for decades that we must sit with our knees together. We mustn't develop muscular shoulders or arms.  We must be 'ladylike'.  What the hell does that mean, other than weak, useless, dependent, controllable?  We can't squat, we can't run, we can't jump, we can't get out of a chair or off the floor. 

So I'm not doing that.  

I've begun to feel really proud of the fact that at the age of 50-in-8-weeks-time I have just set a 100kg Deadlift PB, and can push more watts on the bike than I've ever been able to do.  I'm proud that I'm learning to swim Front Crawl, and that I'm now a competent open water swimmer.  I can run in the mountains with my partner and our dog.  That makes me happy. 

So if you're going through the menopause/ perimenopause/ post menopause- or whether you're nowhere near that yet but you are one of the 50% of the population it will happen to; or whether you're a bloke with a mum, a wife, a partner, a daughter, a friend.  Know that it is absolutely possible to be there, be in it, and be the fittest, healthiest, and strongest you have ever been.  It's not easy, and some days will be shit. But you can train for that marathon; Join that CrossFit gym; Enter that Triathlon. Do the training.  There will be blood, there will be sweat (sometimes more in the bedding than in your training kit) and there will be lots of tears.  

But if I can do it, then so can you.