citizen of the planet

You know, ever since the race on Saturday I’ve been laying off the running  Granted: that was less than a week ago.  Still, I’ve been attempting to take it easy and recover.  Prior to that, my running schedule has been a little bit off as well.  I haven’t been getting in all of my runs as required.  I mean, the Sunday runs have been manageable, but lately the weekday runs have been killing me.  Actually, it’s not so much the runs that have been killing me, but really it’s the act of scrambling up north after work on time to catch up with the rest of the group.  There is a lot in terms of planning ahead that needs to be done just to get there on time.  Sometimes I have to ask myself whether it’s all worth it.  Is it worth it to expend so much energy?  Is it worth it to bring myself to points where exhaustion is just steps away?  Those are some serious questions I’ve had to ask myself, for sure.  Thing is, all it takes is a good run to answer all of those questions.  Yes, it’s worth the effort.  If I train properly, I won’t hit exhaustion.  There’s something about running that boosts endorphins.  My God, yes, yes, yes, running is an awesome activity.  I really just need to be more fair to myself.  If I’m ridiculously tired, I should not put so much pressure on myself for not performing.  It’s the body’s way of warning me that I need to take my foot off the gas pedal.  There’s no point in driving myself into the ground, right?  Anyway, I guess that’s all I needed: I just needed to refocus.

And somehow it came to be that Saturday is a race day for me.  It’s not the race day–that one comes in a few weeks.  No, this race is a 30K race along the eastern lake shore of Toronto during the evening hours.  I’m still quite humbled by the fact that I can sign up for such a race an not freak out about it being far too long.  As long as I break the race up into smaller chunks for my consumption, and move wisely I should be fine.  I think that at this time what I do after the race is more important.  I’ve been going about my business all week on a bit of a rest deficit.  My body knows it and hasn’t been shy in reminding me all week.  Heck, that’s honestly why my blog posts have been skewed by many hours all week.  Post race, I just need to sleep, and use Sunday as a day to sleep in.  I’m so used to making up early on the weekends that this will be different for me.

Anyway, wish me luck.  This should be a fun race.

Somewhere along the way this week, it seems like I’ve fallen behind in terms of my rest schedule.  Perhaps this is going to make me seem neurotic, but I’ve been blogging at 5 in the morning because I’ve been far too zonked out to cram stuff in at 11:45 at night.  God, it’s not even like I’ve been staying out late every night.  I’ve been doing my activities in their regular slots but my body just seems to be running a few hours ahead…or is it behind?  If I were to head to Hawaii, would my Circadian rhythms be correct?  As I see it, there’s only one solution: y’all need to send me to Honolulu.  I need to correct my system!  By next week I would like to wake up without feeling like a damn zombie.  The only solution is to banish me 5 time zones west for, I’d say, a week.  You can send funding directly to me.  Help a guy out!

(The alternative, I guess, is just to catch up on sleep properly this weekend, but where’s the fun in that?)

Something is a bit off today.  I can’t put my finger on what’s going on, but whatever it is it’s affecting energy levels kind of severely today.  As soon as I got back home today, the only thing I’ve wanted to do was lie down.  I’ve been here on the bed just lying, staring at the ceiling, staring at the walls.  I feel like I don’t have the energy to do anything else; it’s like I’m just a lump of lead.  Maybe I’m dehydrated. Maybe I just didn’t eat enough during the day.  I don’t know.I’m hoping sleep will kind of reset everything, and get my rhythms balanced again, but I almost feel like I can’t get over this unsettled feeling.

Something just doesn’t feel right.

Wow, haven’t felt this in a long while.  Did the 90 minute hot yoga class earlier.  It went better than I thought it would.  Now, hours later, I’m feeling quite wiped out.  It took a while for the fatigue to set in, but here it is.  I’m currently on the couch in the living room.  I’ve been on it for three hours.  I just don’t feel like I have the energy to get off it.  I suppose I can sleep here, but why do that when my bed is just steps away?  Those few steps seem so far though.  Aaaargh.  Am I drinking enough?  Am I drinking enough?  With all of the physical activity I’m doing, am I eating enough to support all my activities?  I just shouldn’t feel like a cement block.  I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow, but…wow.

Maybe this has come up with a couple of people that I’ve spoken to in the past while, but I’ve stated that I think that I have this hidden pool of energy that I can tap into in times of need. Do I actually believe that? Well, if I consider how I’ve somehow managed to do plyometrics classes on Sundays even after doing 20K runs, it tells me that, yeah, there’s something there that I can call on when, by all accounts, I should be tired. As I’m writing this though, I’m genuinely facing exhaustion. This kind of bothers me. I mean, yeah, I recognize that I’m only human and that I have limitations that I can’t ignore. However, if I think about it, if I’m this tired during my down time, how am I suppose to handle marathon training?

Good question.

In terms of running, it’s normal for people to have on and off days.  Hopefully, off days are kept to a minimum, right?  That’s not to say that the days when I’m not feeling so great are useless.  I mean, there’s usually a good lesson of some sort to be learned from a rough outing.  Conversely, good runs are  entirely useful for providing a great confidence boost.  Oh, but all of that is obvious, isn’t it?

I remember a couple of weeks ago, I had a particularly rough run that eventually lead to a really nasty migraine.  Ultimately, that’s what tends to happen to me when I don’t do the proper preparations before hand.  On those runs I really question whether I have it in me to go farther and start encroaching on the larger distances.  I mean, I suppose I have the ability, but the confidence is truly lacking.  Well, last Sunday as well as this Sunday I was really aiming to not have a bad run.  I did all of the necessary precautions and, yes, those runs were certainly much more comfortable–even to the point where doing extra kilometres wasn’t that big of a deal.  Just like last week, close to the end of the scheduled 18 kilometres I decided to add two more to round thing out.  Both times, I felt quite awesome.  After both of these runs I was feeling so good that I still made it over to my plyometrics class just because I was able.  Despite doing both, I’ve come out of the plyo class feeling quite relaxed.  Ultimately, what this tells me is that my body and mind both seem to be getting used to  all the work I’ve been handing over.  Apparently my musculoskeletal system can handle the strain.  That’s good news.  I mean, aside from a day when my body is truly tired, if I ever feel like I’m just incapable because my body just can’t handle things I know that it’s more of a mental thing than anything else.  That’s kind of a comforting thing: it means that the training is paying off.  Guess all of that time put in has been useful after all.

Just woke up from a nap on the couch. I had a bag of ice wrapped in a small towel placed on my forehead while I was lying down.  When I woke up the bag of ice migrated its way around my head to a spot under base of my skull.  The ice was necessary to reduce the swelling going on inside my head.  See, I had developed one hell of a migraine.  At least, I think it was a migraine.  It was an intense headache that felt like someone drove a spike through my head.  The bright sunlight piercing my shutters in the bedroom felt harsher than usual.  Every small noise seemed to be amplified several times over to the point of being too harsh.  I was entirely nauseous and in fear of throwing up.  It was basically rough going over the past few hours.  How the heck did I get to this point?  Well, I’m sure I can pinpoint it to this morning’s run.

On schedule, we were supposed to do a 12 kilometre run.  I got through that, but then decided that I wanted to head back out for a couple of more kilometres.  The plan was to just head out west until I felt it was appropriate to turn back.  Secretly though, I was looking to tack on another 10-12.  I wanted to go over 21 kilometres just to tell myself that I could to it if I wanted to.  So, I went on, but as usual at around the 13K point I started feeling a bit rough.  At 15K I started feeling like doing 10 more wouldn’t be wise at all.  Luckily, at that point I was at the road that would give me a 7K route.  So, I turned and started heading back.  As I went, I struggled more and more.  By the time I got back I knew I was spent.  Those 19 kilometres were hard earned.

Usually when I have a lengthier run I do all of the proper prep work the night before.  I load up on water to stave off the headaches.  I eat enough carbs to make sure I’m fuelled correctly.  I’ve had enough problems in the past to know that doing these things are a necessity.  Last night though, even though I was toying with the idea of going farther than I should, mentally I was only doing a more manageable 12K.  Oops.

Post-run I was feeling a little bit light headed.  It was kind of expected.  I went over to Tim Hortons, refuelled, then headed over to the plyometrics class.  Yeah, I know it’s a little bit insane to be doing a hard class like plyo after doing a long run like that, but I figured I could handle it.  The class was OK, but I was actively battling a post-exercise headache at that point.  I must have looked slightly insane pacing about, but I had to do it.  I had to keep the energy up or else I’d just collapse mid-class.

On my way home I was planning on getting a nap in for a few hours to recover, by my parents decided to drop by.  I spent a few hours entertaining them which include some gaming on the Wii.  I guess we were causing a ruckus which caused the downstairs neighbours to pound the ceiling to tell us to knock it off.  I’m a little bit mortified, but it was 5 p.m.  It’s not like we were doing something in the middle of the night.  Whatever.  Anyway, when they finally left that was my opportunity to lie down and get a small nap in.  Unfortunately the nap finally allowed my body to start complaining and rebelling.  Hours later, I’m now feeling slightly better, though…I’m sure I’ll have some lingering effects for a while.

Tomorrow will be a better day!  Declared it!