Runners Who Have Had Anemia: How Much Did You Improve With Treatment?

I am a girl, now 29 years old.

*As a high schooler, I trained very hard but struggled to break 5:30 for the 1600, and ran around 20:40 for the 5K. Towards the end of senior year I started having a problem with my legs going lactic in races.

*As a college freshman I got cut from the team for being too slow, despite training hard all summer. I was very bummed.

*At the very beginning of sophomore year, I ran a 5K and it took me OVER 27 MINUTES! Someone from my club pointed out that I might have uhh, an iron problem. I could barely stay awake to finish my homework at the time.

*Got my iron tested and my hemoglobin was 7 and my ferritin was 1! Decided to back wayyyy off the running for a couple months.

*By spring had run 18:40 in the 5K. Felt like I was on EPO. Started running for the XC team again in the fall, and was competitive.

Interesting, I was also cut from my college team for running like crap (also had a sfx from depo provera though). I never quite got that slow but I stagnated at 19:56 and was stuck there for years. Dropped down to 18:40 this past year.

I've read the whole thread. If I were you, I would try supplementing. I'm a vegan and always thinking about my B-12 and iron. So I supplement. A problem with ranges, such as with ferritin and cholesterol, is that they give guidance but may not address the clinical needs of the particular person. The raging debate over what constitutes borderline hypertension is a case in point.

Wow! I ran similar times to you in high school and improved a ton at the beginning of my freshman year of college, running 10:37 for 3K and 18:52 for 5K during indoor. I started to fade by outdoor season, then got a stress fracture. I continued to feel sluggish when I came back, but figured I was out of shape. That might have been part of it except I never got back. I continued to get the same injury as well, a tibial stress fracture and reaction. I wonder if the delayed healing had to do with iron problems too. I wasn't cut from the team, but we had a mutual parting after I could barely break 21 minutes and fell behind in workouts. I had insomnia and was tired all the time.

I'm now 27 and back to actually training consistently again. I've run 3 marathon since 2011 and was running 60 mpw training for cross country. This was as close as I've been to college training since college, yet I still rarely break 21 in a flat 5K and anything with hills is waaay slower (8+ min pace) because they make my legs burn and cramp.

I don't expect any miracles, but it's nice to know there might be a light at the end of the tunnel!

xenonscreams wrote:

I just show up at a Swedish lab anywhere in Seattle and tell them I have a standing order for a full iron panel.

I hope there is an amusing reason why only Swedes can do your lab work

Bad Wigins wrote:

xenonscreams wrote:

I just show up at a Swedish lab anywhere in Seattle and tell them I have a standing order for a full iron panel.

I hope there is an amusing reason why only Swedes can do your lab work

I hope something similar will happen to you after you get your iron levels under control, and I suspect it will. I was really in a bad place before I got my problem figured out. I am very thankful to the people in my club who encouraged me to get my levels checked, because I was just convinced that I was out of shape, not training hard enough, and that I sucked.

Unfortunately the part of the story that I left off was that as I improved rapidly, training felt unfathomably easy. I could clip off dozens of miles at what felt like lightning fast paces compared to before. Because running suddenly felt fantastic and easy and watching my times drop was so very fun, I naturally bumped my mileage up. Although aerobically the increase in mileage was no problem, my legs reacted poorly to the sudden increase in mileage (and faster paces), and I proceeded to suffer a cycle of injuries that lasted about a year and a half, including stress fractures. College was a train wreck!

My advice would be to take it easy even as you feel better to avoid over-stressing your legs, as leg strength may lag behind aerobic gains.

The effect of iron and folate therapy on maximal exercise performance in female marathon runners with iron and folate deficiency.

Matter M, Stittfall T, Graves J, Myburgh K, Adams B, Jacobs P, Noakes TD.

Abstract

Of the 85 female marathon runners examined in this study, 14 (16%) had serum ferritin levels below 40 ng/ml but only two (2%) had iron deficiency anaemia (haemoglobin below 12 g/dl); 28 (33%) had serum folate levels below 4.8 ng/ml and of these two (2%) had haemoglobin levels below 12 g/dl and 13 (15%) had mean corpuscular volumes greater than 95 fl. One week after treatment with oral folate (5 mg/day) or iron (50 mg of elemental iron/day), serum ferritin and folate levels were normal but maximum oxygen uptake, maximum treadmill running time, peak blood lactate levels and the running speed at the blood 'lactate turnpoint' were not changed from values measured during an identical test performed 1 week earlier. These parameters were also unchanged in a third exercise test performed after a further 10 weeks of treatment. Serum folate or serum ferritin levels in a control (placebo-treated) group with initially high serum ferritin or folate levels fell with placebo treatment but maximum treadmill running time, maximum oxygen uptake values, peak blood lactate levels and the running speed at the blood 'lactate turnpoint' were unchanged. We conclude that biochemical evidence of iron and folate deficiency is relatively common in female distance runners; that 1 week of treatment corrects the biochemical evidence of folate and iron deficiency but that such treatment does not influence maximal exercise performance nor does it alter blood lactate levels during exercise. In the absence of iron deficiency anaemia, iron therapy for reduced serum ferritin levels, or folate therapy for low serum folate levels, may not improve maximal treadmill performance even in trained runners.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

but who cares if it works..

http://journals.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/8734.pdf

+1

I had a horrible bout of anemia my sophomore year of high school. It started during the end of cross and continued until the end of track.

I think my ferritin was 12-ish

my hemoglobin was 6.7

My 1500 went from 4:35 the year before to (at its worst) 6:41

about 2 or 3 weeks after starting hardcore iron supplements (4XFeSO4 325 mg per day) I ran a 5:07 in the 1500, and by mid summer I ran a PR in the 5K

take iron supplements and keep taking them, don't drink coffee, if anyone tells you to get iron in your diet don't listen, supplements do more (and are cheaper) than red meat, kale, and bread.

good luck

As you approach 30, you are a woman, not a girl.

Is it safe to take liquid iron at a reduced rate (maybe once a week) if the athlete is male and doesn't show any signs of low iron but is also putting in high mileage?

Basically, can one supplement iron to levels that are too high and actually inhibit performance?

sdjfskdlj3493 wrote:

Is it safe to take liquid iron at a reduced rate (maybe once a week) if the athlete is male and doesn't show any signs of low iron but is also putting in high mileage?

Basically, can one supplement iron to levels that are too high and actually inhibit performance?

Update: I talked to my actual doctor today and he has ruled out anything else that would cause my fatigue, so he said supplement iron and we'll check ferritin again in 3 months.

Hardloper wrote:

the558miler wrote:

How do you go about doing that at the NW HMOs as an amateur runner? Do you have to play the dr's games (tell them you feel fatigued) or can you straight out ask for a ferritin test for running performance?

Good question... I work at a large tech company (not the same one as xenonscreams) with an on-campus health building next door to mine... I sort of just assumed I could ask for it at a free checkup... if I have to tell them I feel fatigued, I certainly wouldn't be lying.

I had symptoms of low iron and they would not do the ferritin test. They claimed CBC test was good enough. Hemoglobin was fine on the CBC so they would not do ferritin. Hardloper, did you ever get your ferritin tested?

the558miler wrote:

I had symptoms of low iron and they would not do the ferritin test. They claimed CBC test was good enough. Hemoglobin was fine on the CBC so they would not do ferritin. Hardloper, did you ever get your ferritin tested?

Yes I did. I told them I was tired, sleepy even when I got enough sleep, occasionally short of breath (all true but I knew those were symptoms of low iron). They took my ferretin and like 7 other things. Sure enough it was 11 and low vitamin D, everything else fine. What was your hemoglobin exactly? Mine was 14.5 which is on the low end of normal.

PS while you need a prescription for ferrous sulfate pills for some reason, you can get liquid ferrous sulfate over-the-counter which works better.

HardLoper wrote:

PS while you need a prescription for ferrous sulfate pills ...

You don't need a prescription for ferrous sulfate pills.