PMS in athletic women. Help me!

There has to be a cure for PMS.  Forget Midol and madcow exercising.  I mean a real end to the monthly derailing of my life I call my period.  Let's organize a 5k in an effort to raise research money for the brutal 'cycle' of hazardous feminine changes.  I'm positive that a majority of the female population would participate.  Not to mention their innocent male counterparts of whom I'm sure are anxious to be rid of being hated for no real reason outside of the calendar.  (Please don't think I'm belittling REAL diseases worthy of serious research.  Cancer patients would kill to only have PMS to worry about, I'm well aware). 

All women have very different hormonal changes and deal with them in all sorts of interesting ways.  Truth of the matter is, discussion of such a topic for some is almost taboo and highly personal.  Being that those two boundaries are two of my favorite lines to toe while getting to know the people who invite me into their lives for training, I find PMS to be absolutely fascinating.  Speaking from a performance perspective, I've found hormonal changes to be one of the biggest challeges in my endurance training.  I'd like to know the experiences and remedies of my fellow ladies of hard work.  What happens to you?  How do you deal?  How do we own the road one day, then just tying our run shoes the next warrants wanting to sleep for about a week?  Indeed there is a beautiful purpose and function around our cycles for which I'm very grateful.  But for women that race triathlons or endure tough workouts, I must ask if you find yourself saying 'thank you' to nature when you're asked to be at peak performance during a period that makes just getting out of bed the single toughest athletic endeavor ever pursued. 

Today I swam in mud.  Which was the same pool in which I always swim.  The same in which I normally feel great.  The same in which I hate to exit because I find swimming restorative and rejuventing.  But not today.  Today the mud water sucked my usual streamline body about 3 feet below the surface and denied my limbs the ability to adhere to any kind of economical rhythm.  Just floundering.  My bloated frame half swam and half sank across the pool in twice the amount of usual time with triple the effort. 

The night before I slept 8 hours like I was dead.  I normally function impeccably off 5 or 6, but this 8 felt only like a catnap after having been up for days and marathon running nonstop.  All the sleep in the world complimented by a caffeine cocktail wouldn't have kept me from drowning in the energy suckhole. Waking up tired and looking ahead to a 10 hour work day then chasing a 4 year old with some sort of workout in there can make even the best motivationalists surrender to shut-eye with no hesitation. 

And to add the final toppings to the PMS pizza powerful enough to make me, well....nap because I'm too tired to continue griping about it; is the buffet of terrible food I crave.  Give me salt or give me death.  Now sugar becuase I'm tired.  Pick your absolute favorite food vice then multiply a normal serving of it by 12.  That's what I need to feel even remotely close to satiating the endless hunger.  How am I supposed to stay at race weight feeling perpetually as though I've never had any food in my life? 

So why am I spending all this precious typing time just, well, bitching?  I promise I of all people feel so blessed to be a woman and thank my body in all it's behaviors daily.  I just want some answers.  I know I'm not alone.  I know other women ask much of their lives/athleticism performance wise and I want to know how you keep from drowning every month.  Please give me some solid feedback outside taking a day off or ingesting enough caffeine to make an elephant tap dance.  Becuase that won't work in my life. 

Thank you for listening and for your honest feedback on the topic that quietly slips in each month and just LOVES to throw a wrench in a woman's performance world. Here's to our beautiful womanly bodies and all we do to keep them moving at top speed (I'm raising my brownies and nachos to cheers)!