State Of This Body - 10 Days To Rocky Raccoon 50 Miler

It's been a rocky last few weeks, and I'm not just talking about the rocks at the Bandera 50K. So here, since I haven't caught the blog up on it all, is the State Of This Body with 10 days to the Rocky Raccoon 50 Mile!

• I'm on heavy doses of meds - I lost my sense of smell the last 4 months. A couple weeks ago, I finally went to the ENT for a checkup since it was getting a little distressed - I'm not being melodramatic that I had ZERO sense of smell. The ENT said I've had a bad sinus infection for months. This can traumatize nerve endings and kill olfactory sense, either temporarily... or permanently when it's an ongoing problem. The doctor wanted to nip the issue in the bud which meant having to mega-dose drugs at this storm of sinus problems going on to try to kill it off with no chance to linger. The positives is that my sense of smell IS actually returning, although it's sensory overload when you are used to not ever being able to smell anything. The bad news is that I'm on a powerful cocktail of corticosteroids and antibiotics, both oral pills and nasal wash.
• I have side effects from heavy doses of meds - The steroids make me hyper, antsy, and give me mood swings, along with some sleep problems. It makes me incredibly thirsty all the time to the point that I'm drinking about 160 ounces of water a day and I'm still thirsty, and my body is sucking that hydration so hard my hands are dried out and my nails are splitting. The antibiotics in large doses for longterm (3 weeks) messes with your stomach, so that sucks. 
• My iron levels are AWESOME! I had another 2 month recheck, and no iron deficiency. I don't even have to go back now until mid-May before my Bighorn race in June.
• Mentally I feel good - Bandera 50K was a kick-butt training run, but it set up my mental game for the 50 miler ahead. And the last long week of training felt good.
• Physically I don't know where I stand - I went from 30 miles over a WHOLE month to a Saturday 50K to a week of 52 running miles. A huge increase. I feel strong but I fear being overconfident when my miles up until last week still point to undertrained. Which is at least better than overtrained.
• I'm getting more sleep - I started a week ago trying to get 7 1/2 to 8 hours a night. As a night owl, I'm much more used to getting to bed around 1 am to get up around 7 am. I'm trying to rest up for the battle ahead in 10 days!
• Weight is an ongoing battle - Two weeks ago, I had a check-in with my trainer and came to the reality that over the 3 months of less miles and more race directing, I had gained twelve pounds and 6% body fat. I was eating like an ultrarunner without running like one! Who wants to carry a sack of flour for 50 miles?!? Last week I did a great job watching my food, and while normally steroids would cause a weight increase of a few pounds in water retention, I lost 3 pounds. I'm hoping over the next 10 days with watching my food (note, still FUELING this body, just not to excess) that I can drop a few more pounds to carry less fluff for a 14 hour running day!
• And now I have a cold! The two year old has had a runny nose for a couple days, and yesterday my sore throat and congestion started. The bright side is better to get it this week than next. Hopefully that means all recovered in time for the race.

I thought this would be a good moment to document the status of where I'm at, and then I can look at this in a week and see how I'm feeling. In general, I will say I'm a lot more calm about this 50 miler than the last one. Which is funny since I'm probably less physically prepared than last time!