Mars started his treatment

Last week I took Mars to an internal medicine specialist for an ultrasound. They saw that both of his adrenal glands appear to be enlarged, which pretty much confirmed the previous suspected diagnosis of Cushing's Disease. Since both were enlarged it is most likely a pituitary tumor causing it. She recommended treatment so we started that last night. He's on 750mg of Lysodren twice a day for a week. We'll take him back for the ACTH stimulation test next Thursday and hopefully his cortisol levels will be in the normal range. The drug is pretty nasty - DDT derivative, we have to wear gloves when administering it since we don't want to ingest any of it at all. It basically is supposed to kill much of his adrenal so when the pituitary tumor send the signals, the adrenals can't respond fully to the stimulus. We can't do much about the pituitary tumor - pretty sure that would require doggie brain surgery! So far after 3 doses he's doing just fine. We're hoping the dosing goes well, if you give too much, you don't produce cortisol and that can be even worse than too much. We have a prescription of prednisone just in case...

Now onto other things, like training! There are 16 weeks until the Loveland Lake to Lake race, so my official training has begun. I'm using a combination of the Team in Training schedule and the Triathlete Magazine Training Plan book to get appropriate workouts. So here's what this week looks like so far:

Monday:
-morning swim of 1400yds (300wu, 8x25 drills, 4x100m.s., 8x25 kick, 300 cd).
I'm working on getting the catch timed right - I have been waiting too long (a lot of gliding) to start it.
-lunch bike ride at the gym in the spin room. I can adjust the seat and handlebars better, and the seat is a bit more comfortable than the sandard stationary bike on the main workout floor. It was a 60 minute foundation ride, kept my HR around 145-150 after a 10min wu. Did a 15 minute cool down.

Tuesday = Track!
But before the track I did some strength training over lunch. Some legs, but mainly upper body, especially the back and shoulder.
Track practice was great, but of course hard!
it went down as follows:
1miles walk wu.
800m easy pace
1200m T pace (I nailed it at 6:15! - 2:05/400m)
400 recovery
1200 I pace (a bit slow on the first 400, but the next two were dead on 1:55/400m)
400 recovery
1200 R pace. (This was hard to maintain, I was a few seconds too slow each lap)
400 recovery
2x200 R pace - focus on form, 200 recovery.
Then plyometrics! High kneews, butt kickers, skipping, and bounding
800m easy cool down.
Long workout!!! But good as always. My abductors were tightening up so I need to incorporate them a little more into my strength training routine.

Wednesday
Didn't get to bed until late (Tim had a meeting at the house and it didn't get over until after 10pm). Just a bike ride on the trainer with 6x20s Power intervals - Big Gear! with 2:40 rest. Total time on bike - 60 minutes.

Thursday - swim and run!
-morning swim of 1600yds (300wu, 8x25 drills, 4x100 fartlek - 25ascend/25 decend, 4x50 sprint, 8x25 kicking, 300 cd). The cool down actually felt pretty relaxed. Need to keep working on my flip turns, those didn't work so well today. and my breathing wasn't smooth - felt too shallow. It's always something!
-lunch run around quail lake. 4 laps at E pace (ok, a little faster than E pace) and then 3 sets of 100yd strides. Those strides really loosened up my legs after the run. Which was a good thing because I had a long meeting to sit through that afternoon!

Tomorrow is mainly a rest day, but I think I will do an easy swim, maybe 1000yds with plenty of rest. Just want to work on feeling more relaxed in the water. And tomorrow night is swim practice with the Team in Training folks! That should be fun. Which reminds me, I need to get the workout schedule updated now...