Pernicious Anemia refers to a deficiency of Vitamin B12, which prevents my red blood cells from forming and thus my oxygen capacity is diminished. Needless to say, when this happens, your running will be crap! This makes all the sense in the world to me. Even on my good days, I have yet to complete a run below the Mendoza line in 2021 (3 miles @ sub-8 pace). Granted, I am nearly 41 years old and cannot expect to do the same stuff I did a decade ago but I certainly did not expect THIS STEEP of a decline. I am more concerned with the sensitivity to supplements and there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for a healthy person to react badly to a food based veggie supplement such as Texas Superfood. Probably the biggest misconception about me is that I can't be happy unless I am running well. THAT AIN'T TRUE! All I want out of this is a stable cocktail of pills with no extreme dependence and at least adequate levels of energy every day. That really should not be too much to ask.
So if my B-12 levels are low, why not just take B-12 shots or mega doses of supplements? It's not so easy. I once had my blood levels tested and it was actually off the charts HIGH. Yet, my hair test showed Cobalt (B-12 mineral) to be barely detectable. The reason is simply. The B-12 was pooling up in my blood but never reached my cells. When that happens, supplementation actually does more harm than good.
So what to do? First, sufficient levels of ATP and Lithium are required for transport. When this problem was corrected, I was able to tolerate SOME B-12 but NOT the mega doses that I absolutely needed. Why not? All signs point to a stomach protein called Intrinsic Factor. Because I was deficient in this key factor, I never could properly absorb B-12. I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED IF THIS WAS THE REASON FOR THE SENSITIVITY TO OTHER STUFF ALL ALONG!!
Results:
When I increased the B-12, the inexplicable reactions to benign supplements STOPPED! That's pretty strong evidence of the above claim. Unfortunately, I increased the dosage too quickly. Think of it this way: When a person is severely dehydrated, gulping down water will make them feel nauseous but tiny sips will cause them to feel tremendous relief. However, after a few of those tiny sips, the body will demand big gulps. That's where I am now. I am taking 16,000 mcg of B-12 on a stand alone basis plus more when you account for the B-complex and CBS/NOS pill. Even that may not be enough. I may have to jack it up to 20K if I plateau soon.
Last Sunday, it took me 24:54 to run 2.5 miles and it took a late rally just to finish below 10:00 pace. Just 4 days later, my time is down to 21:23 (8:33 pace). Obviously, this rate of improvement is unsustainable and I will eventually level off. When that happens, I may up the dose a bit. Also, my times without the B-12 in the morning have improved even faster. I've improved from 4+ minutes for 1/3 of a mile (12:00 pace) all the way down to 2:33 today (7:39 pace) within the same timeframe.
Sadly, this type of thing is not unprecedented. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I've seen similar gains before but they were short-lived and often followed by a crash just after my hopes were beginning to rise. Why is this time different? Simple, I never addressed the Intrinsic Factor before and I'm quite sure that the wrong benign supplement would have triggered a collapse. That's not happening now!
I'm feeling more consistent and stable levels of energy. How do I know it? It's a sort of thing that you just know but can't put into words. Aside from the better times in my runs, I'm not feeling big changes from day to day but over the course of several days to weeks, it IS noticeable. Monday's run didn't feel much different than Sunday's and Wednesday's didn't feel much better than Tuesday's. Wednesday compared with Sunday? Yes, the improvement is clearly evident. Soon, improvement may not be evident from one week to the next but over the course of a month, I'll be able to tell. In the past, I've traded 9 minute paces for 6s from one day to the next after adjusting my formula. That's something that I DO NOT want to see. Let's say that I'm in 26:xx shape for a 5K now, I don't want to go straight down to 21:xx. I want to go through the 25s and 24s and so on.
I'm seeing better tolerance to caffeine. Of course, that stuff is not good for me but again, there are some days in which it is necessary to cheat to get through the day at work. If I overdo it, I'll collapse when I get home. That's not happening this time. I may see an adrenal spike after I quit it but it will be a 1-2 day blip. No big deal. I used to do a lot of my running indoors before the pandemic and people wondered why. It's simple. I suffered from frequent diarrhea attacks and needed to be near a toilet. It happens to every runner on occasion but in my case, it was a fairly regular event. So far, I've had no such issues since taking the mega B12 even if I eat foods that triggered it in the past. I've recently learned that diarrhea could be B-12 related. Finally, I was often dizzy after standing up too quickly and usually saw stars. That has not happened recently either.
What does anger me is that this should have been diagnosed much sooner. I had problems with sensitivity to supplements as far back as 2005 and YES, I went to a "real doctor" about it. The only thing that came up on my blood work as abnormal was an elevated homocysteine level. I've only recently learned that this IS LINKED TO PERNICIOUS ANEMIA! This should have been diagnosed 16 years ago. My doctor never did any follow up testing. Instead, he pushed anti-depressants on me, which actually worsened my fatigue and further strained my exhausted adrenal glands.
I got the appearance of healing in 2012 when I was setting PRs almost every time out but that proved to be an illusion as well. At that time, I DID have a stable cocktail but still had inexplicable reactions to benign supplements and minerals. I just knew what to avoid. Unfortunately, as I got older the buildup of toxic metals and worsening B-12 deficiency proved too much to overcome. It is quite possible that I ran a sub-40 10K and sub-90 half marathon IN SPITE of being anemic! How good could I have been if fully healthy? Sadly, I will never know.
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