Hoping for a "Faster Tomorrow"

It has been six hours and I don't feel any different.

I wouldn't expect to yet but I needed a good starting sentence for my blog today.

Last Thursday I had a few hours where I had a complete lack of confidence in my ability to do this race. During this time I started doubting myself and my willingness to continue training. I know it sounds a tad dramatic but I wasn't feeling well at all. If I wasn't being held accountable by my coach and my increasing number of supporters I might have just thrown away the last few months of training. I know that backing out now would probably be one of the worst decisions I have made in life, one that I would always regret, so I started looking for help.

My focus was on supplementation. I take a multi-vitamin every day but started looking into my other options. Since EPO and HGH are out of the question I started looking at other products. Some of you may have heard of Optygen- I have friends who use this product and give it great reviews but I wanted to try something different and, to be honest, a little cheaper. I stumbled on a review of a product by Healthy Directions called ARX. It is an all natural product which satisfied one of my criteria and their opening line on the website grabbed my attention as well:

"ARX’s unique combination of ingredients helps to clear lactate from the bloodstream faster and circulate it to the rest of the body so that it can be used as an additional fuel source for exercise and other energy demands, improving your performance and reducing muscle recovery time."

Here is a link to their site: http://www.fastertomorrow.com/

It was important to me that whatever I decided to take was made only from natural ingredients. Since I am cutting out highly processed and chemically enhanced foods from my diet (as best I can) it didn't make sense to purchase a product that was nothing but chemicals. I need to be able to pronounce all the ingredients in the product! ARX is a blend of mushroom extracts, eleuthero root extract, tangerine peel extract, and Asian ginseng root extract. No chemicals, no fillers, nothing that I normally wouldn't eat (though I am not sure what eleuthero root is). My mind was made up- I would try ARX. If it works for Terenzo Bozzone maybe it would work for Kevin Johnson!

I ordered a two month supply and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I took the first dose of it this morning when I woke up. All of the product documentation states that it typically takes a few weeks to feel the products benefits so only time will tell if I will feel any performance improvement with this product or if my recovery time will decrease. I don't really care about the performance improvement but am really hoping that I notice a decrease in recovery time. With my training about to be at it's longest and most intense any additional help I can get will be welcomed. If it doesn't make a noticeable difference that is OK too. Since it is an all natural product and I will not feel guilty about taking it.

I also solicited some additional help from Sarah Neumann, a fantastic nutritionist and superb athlete, and with her help I will be looking for new multi-vitamin and mineral supplements as well. This will probably have to wait until after my race since I don't want to make to many changes at once with less then two months to go. Perhaps with Sarah's advice I will find the right products for me for the 2010 season...provided I don't retire after this race.

My confidence sways back and forth like the wind but I still have some time to get in the right frame of mind. I am so fortunate to have the support of so many different people. People from all over the country, and now all over the world! Who would have thought people from other countries would stumble on to my blog. Thanks everyone!

Happy training!!!