Pushing myself too hard

Ugh. I think I’ve pushed myself too hard today. It was supposed to be a recovery day for me, but I didn’t attempt to rest until late afternoon. It’s now late evening and I’m in all sorts of pain. My head feels like it’s in a vice with some sort of weird torture mechanism that somehow manages to stab your eyeballs from behind. I went downstairs to greet my parents who were out for most of the day. The smell of food almost made me want to puke. I think I have a fever. Any harsh stimulus like bright light makes my head hurt. Overall, I think I’m in worse shape than I was yesterday. I feel as if my body is sort of in a red-alert status right now.

So, this morning, because I missed the runs on Wednesday and Thursday, I wanted to push myself out there. Just like last week I used the “no excuses!” reasoning on myself. The 6K route we took today wasn’t so bad in the past, so I was sort of expecting to fight through it all and do OK. Hoo boy. Nope. I tried to keep up with the group but fell behind by the end of the first 10 minutes. I just couldn’t get enough air intake into my body because of my clogged up system. I was coughing, hacking, sweating, and cursing. I wanted to just turn around and head back to store. The instructor slowed down and ran with me the rest of the way. He used the time to educate me on my pacing, and running tips in general. I told him about how I forced myself to get out there. He told me: “don’t feel guilty; if you’re sick, you’re sick.” Even though it’s obvious, I wish someone told me before. When I ran at a slower pace like he suggested (and I mean slow) I managed to run without gasping for to much air. The rest of the run was tolerable, but really I shouldn’t have been out there at all.

When we got back, he spoke to the manager and insisted that my shoes weren’t right. Heheh. Apparently that saga just won’t end, eh? Only this time, I think we’ve come to a point of realization, but I’ll save that for another day because seriously my head feels like it’s going to explode.

After the run, I really had no time to rest. I was out the door and off to church on my own after getting cleaned up. Throughout mass I was feeling exhausted. I found myself spending a lot of energy just trying to suppress my cough. Out of responsibility to the other parishioners I didn’t want to be hacking all over and making everyone in a radius around me sick.

When I got home, it was half an hour before I was back out again. I finally made arrangements to met with the person I was supposed to meet two weeks ago. We were supposed to eat at a Japanese buffet place, but the place I wanted was finished serving lunch by the time we got there so instead I suggested the Korean BBQ place across the street. It was great seeing him again after so long. However, inducing a meat headache might not have been the best thing for me. By the end of the meal, I felt sort of incapacitated. Usually, that post-KBBQ feeling is manageable, but today was just horrible. We walked around for a bit to help get the digestion moving, but I didn’t last long. I was already feeling tired, and like I was going to collapse in the middle of the sidewalk.

When I got home, I just collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep. I only woke up when I found that I couldn’t sleep anymore, and that the bright light of lamp beside my bed was making me angry for no good reason.

I think I can already tell that I want to stay home from work tomorrow and just sleep the day away. I shouldn’t go in if I have a fever, right? I might try to work from home because I feel like I can’t really abandon them at this time. Still, for once I should at least attempt to put my health first.

Possibly related posts:

1. Pushing myself, and the after-effects
2. Biting hard
3. Pushing through midnight