I few months ago, I posted about what a horrible meet, performance-wise, I had at short course nats this year. Couldn't figure out why I swam so slow, and why I was feeling so fatigued.
Anyway, I had a physical a few weeks later, and my blood work showed my ferritin level at 11, and my hematocrit at 39%. Both very low values for an endurance athlete. Doctor has me taking iron pills (ferrous sulfate, 325 mg, twice daily), and I've been taking Proferrin ES for about 6 weeks. Just in the last month, I've noticed a huge increase in performance. I went a :52:33 for my swim split at Ironman Boulder, and I've been feeling great in workouts. Anybody else ever experienced iron deficiency? I'm wondering if the increased performance I'm seeing is due to the replenished iron, or if it's due to something else.
Doctor said my iron levels where low for two main reasons:
1) I don't eat a lot of red meat (maybe once every other week)
2) Since I run and cycle a lot, I lose iron through perspiration (something I never heard of before-I thought you just lost salt)
My real question is if replenishing my iron stores can cause such a large increase in performance in just 2 months. Not feeling tired is one thing, but suddenly going 10-15 seconds faster in a 500 free seems very surprising (not that I'm complaining!).
Doctor said my iron levels where low for two main reasons:
1) I don't eat a lot of red meat (maybe once every other week)
2) Since I run and cycle a lot, I lose iron through perspiration (something I never heard of before-I thought you just lost salt)
My real question is if replenishing my iron stores can cause such a large increase in performance in just 2 months. Not feeling tired is one thing, but suddenly going 10-15 seconds faster in a 500 free seems very surprising (not that I'm complaining!).
