I was expecting this to be a helmet hair type thread that happens when women cut their long hair. I warned my wife but she wouldn't listen.:-) And I'm truly blessed as an older guy with a head of full longish hair not like your bald IM training buddies.

Assuming its not chlorine in the pool, it can be a few things in females that cause hair problems but I'm not an expert on this. Thyroid, liver, vitamin/mineral deficiencies are a few causes that I'm aware of. Its possible you could have been borderline and now the stress of IM training is pushing you over the edge.

As a beginning point go talk to your family physician and get the appropriate blood/urine testing done as a start.

I've got the same problem (bald training partners) Do they have no hair because of the IM training, or are bald men attracted to IM? There's probably a master's thesis in that somewhere...

I've noticed a similar degeneration in hair quality and I put it down to a combination of pool chlorine, seawater and stinky sweaty head far too often which probably leads to washing it far too often. Age of course has absolutely nothing to do with it. :-)

I'd be interested to hear from the fishies womens on their perspective given they're in the pool a lot too.

I just got RAKED over coals on Saturday by my stylist for my hair condition. I'm not swimming a gazillion more yards than last year...my hair was just wonkier. Plus it was longer, so maybe that was contributing. Add in that I erroneously used a HUGE palm-ful of cheap travel body lotion as conditioner the day prior (THE BOTTLES LOOKED & SMELLED THE EXACT SAME) before having to re-shampoo & actually try to condition.....and my hair was a mess. She wound up essentially shaving the back of my neck where my caps all leave my hair exposed to sun/pool/sweat/ick. Between the pulling/tugging/breaking caused by the caps on the nape of my neck & by my temples & the general mayhem that the chemicals can cause....I'm not surprised I wound up with about 8" or more cut off.

It wouldn't surprise me at all that a good bit of stress on your body from training/racing, some much-increased training load and the combined effect of more time in the sun with sweat & chemicals would start breaking/damaging your hair to the breaking point. Moreso if you have fine hair & if it's blonde. My hair was trashed after my iron-distance effort in 2008 & I wasn't swimming much then....

WET YOUR HAIR BEFORE YOU SWIM, TRY TO PUT IN A LITTLE CONDITIONER ON THE ENDS (ESP WHERE IT MAY BE EXPOSED) & RINSE/WASH IT AS SOON AS YOU CAN AFTER TRAINING EFFORTS - SWEAT & SUN ARE ALWAYS DAMAGING.

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AW

FWIW, I recently accidentally discovered hydrating Macadamia Oil shampoo and conditioner by Organix. (It's not organic.) It moisturizes my long hair nicely. I try to use it at least once a week. Swim days I use UltraSwim for the conditioner--it does a good job of getting the chlorine out--and a conditioner.

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No coasting in running and no crying in baseball

Thanks everyone. I did pick up some intense conditioning type things at the store today. Plus I made my appointment with the doc to check if anything in my body is "off" after the race.

I do already use a pre-swim conditioner before my pool swims. And my race was a salt-water swim. I'll keep you posted if I future anything out after I see the doc.

I had this same problem when I started college. I went to the doctor in a panic, as my hair is already quite thin, so breakage made for visible gaps of scalp (EEK!). Doc said iron+stress. Eat better and relax. Of course, on an IM training schedule, that is near impossible, but it is the best solution. Your body is panicking and sending nutrients elsewhere.

What helped me:
Minimal ponytail-wearing (take it out as SOON as I'm done with sport and avoid it other times - this goes for all other tight hairdo's too)
Imposing sleep schedule better
Multivitamin
Consistent use of strengthening/thickening shampoo/conditioner
Avoiding blow-drying and brushing while wet
Using a chlorine-cleansing shampoo as soon as I'm out of the pool


Good luck!

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You. You make me stronger.

Thanks - this seems exactly like what's happening. I too have thin hair so it is super obvious to me although nobody is pointing and saying, "where is your hair?!". Thursday I'll see my doctor and get tested. I started supplementing my iron and taking a multi-vitamin already. Luckily - this happened after the race so resting and sleeping is happening a lot. I think/guess it was the stress of the race and possibly the immediate post-race recovery that did me in. Perhaps I was borderline iron-deficient before the race but didn't know it. I had a check up right before but I looked at the labs they ran and I don't see Iron on the results so maybe it wasn't tested. Lesson learned for sure. All in all - not the worst thing that could happen in a race this long.

I feel like I caught it pretty quickly. Funny story my daughter and I were sharing a brush for the trip. She's only 9. We had braided her hair into some pretty elaborate pig tails and so she wasn't brushing her hair for these few days. So I looked down at the brush and realized that all the hair in it was mine from just a couple of days. (gasp - ack and also yuck!).

Iron can also be impacted by time o the month for ladies. I can't donate blood around/during that week because my iron will be too low (so frustrating to walk out of the Red Cross with two pricked fingers and no donation).

Good for you for being super-aware of changes in your body. Listening to so many of the men on this thread who are surprised when a toenail falls off "hey look at that!" - ugh. Granted, I worry about every little ache and pain (really really really don't want to deal with injury - if I can just make it through my wedding in Sept I'll declare victory).


Hope the doc and sleep help!

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You. You make me stronger.

Would be interested to see what your doc says.

I've done a coconut oil hair mask a few times, which is a great natural conditioner - it might help? Just warm a good amount of coconut oil in your hands (1/4 cup?) and apply to dry hair until hair is thoroughly wetted with the oil. Wrap your hair in a warm towel and let it sit for 30 minutes. You can take a blow dryer to the towel while it's on your head, too, if you want. Shampoo/condition as usual immediately after.

Haha, I'm lucky I have stick-straight hair and have never felt a pressing need to go to a stylist- I wouldn't have wanted to hear what they thought of me either! I was a pool swimmer in CA for many years, and the little hairs that stuck out of my cap at the top of my neck got bleached white (I am brunette) and were super fine and soft. Crazy. I use TriSwim these days and the shampoo/conditioner combo does a good job of removing the chlorine and making my hair feel silky.

To the OP- never had that problem after a full. Sounds scary! Good luck getting things figured out, hopefully the tests will turn up something simple to fix.

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Twitter | Blog

I also have the stick-straight hair. It's pretty fine but I seem to have quite a bit of it (for now) but there are grays cropping up with reckless abandon now. So I pay someone to give it a cut that looks reasonable & try to keep the color ok.

Those are the exact hairs that we were laughing about last weekend - the little baby fine frazzled white hairs at the nape of my neck. I also have really dark brown hair! She just cut them all off, which luckily was part of the cut anyway. My hair was just too long so the condition of the bottom half was just getting sketchy. I LOVE the whole triswim line of products.

Hoping for good answers on the issues for the OP. As someone deeply entrenched in a really stressful bout of life, I'm just waiting for the issues to happen here as well.

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AW

I haven't done a full and I don't really tend to get hair issues most of the time, but I recently tried a different brand of bleach than the one I've used for 17 years and it did a number on my below-shoulder-length hair right before a HIM and 9 days of motorcycle camping. While I definitely agree getting checked out by a doc is in order for you to make sure there are no underlying health issues, for a quick fix I can highly recommend treating with macadamia oil. I recently found Hask brand at a local discount store for $2.46 per tube so thought I'd give it a try - brought it touring with me and it's been a lifesaver. I just use my fingers to run some through my wet hair after a shower, then brush it to fully distribute. Nice scent, no oily residue, and soft, tangle-free hair without even using conditioner.

http://www.sallybeauty.com/...5555,default,pd.html

http://www.makeupalley.com/...eatment/0/Treatments

Cheers!

-mistress k

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ill advised racing inc.

Okay so visited the doc today. Got lots of congratulations from the whole office for completing my race. And after they thouroughly inspected my hair/scalp/blood etc., they are just basically not all that worried about it. So they said it was just the stress of the day and the recovery from the race that set my hair on collapse. In fact, they speculate that the hair breakage may actually be as much from wearing my hair in a tight braid and a series of hats (swim cap, bike helmet, visor) for 15 hours (after all the extended ponytails and long training hours with sweat and chlorine) that caused a lot of the dryness and breakage as any nutritional deficit. So that's good I think.

I should (of course) keep taking my daily vitamin and taking care of my hair (avoid ponytails) but overall no real concern unless I should see it get worse (like a bald spot). :-) Which is good news for everybody except my hairdresser who may not see me for another set of highlights for a pretty long while.

:-) Amy

thanks so much for this! if i can figure out how to get coconut oil from coconuts I'm going to try this with my youngest daughter.

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not, but no manual extraction is necessary.
Coconut oil.

not at all sarcastic! we have a plethora of cocos here. thanks for the link!

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

I've only just started to notice these little pool bleached lovelies as my hair's got just a little longer at the neck!

I reckon it provides the perfect excuse to put a color through (ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the amount of grey that's hiding in there) or I'll end up with an absolute ripper of an '80's bogan mullet. I did some seriously bad hair back then, but never that bad and I'm not going to start now....