Tag Archives: tired

Getting Behind On Things To Do (or I Know I Needed To Rest)

Posted on February 8, 2023 | Comments Off on Getting Behind On Things To Do (or I Know I Needed To Rest)

I don’t think anyone has fun when they are sick, at least as an adult. When you are a kid, you get to stay home from school and most of us got to watch fun daytime tv. But as an adult, I think I mainly just worry about things I’m not doing while I’m not feeling well.

I’ve been sick for almost a week now. And while I’m still grateful it’s not something worse, having a bad cold really makes you not able to do a lot. I’m still working, although I know I’m not working as quickly as I normally do because of how I feel. But beyond working, I’m really slacking off on things that I know need to be done and it’s starting to pile up.

I’m glad there are a lot of things that make life easier when I’m not able to do as much. I’ve been getting groceries delivered and the stuff I have gotten are all things I can make quickly. I don’t like to just have microwavable meals, but that’s been a lot of my diet this past week. I don’t always feel like eating when I’m sick, so having something quick and easy to make helps when I do feel hungry. Since I didn’t feel like I could drive over this past weekend, getting stuff delivered really helped me get what I needed and make sure I wasn’t getting delivery food that I didn’t need. And I’m so happy that a friend was able to go to CVS for me to get cold medicine since that wasn’t something I could get through my grocery delivery but was something I really needed.

But I also have had to accept that other things just needed to be put off. I haven’t really cleaned since I started feeling sick other than putting dishes in the dishwasher. I know I need to do more cleaning than just that, but the fatigue from this cold has really hit me hard. Even making my bed makes me tired. Nothing is too gross or horrible, but my place isn’t up to my normal standard of cleanliness. I’ll get to cleaning again soon enough, but for now, I have to be ok with how things are until I have the energy to do more.

Besides not doing the regular cleaning that I do in a week, I also haven’t organized things that I’ve had delivered in the past week. I got both my new tv stand and my new tv, but they are both still in their boxes near my front door. I want to get those together so I can get those boxes out of my house, but just like with cleaning, I haven’t had the energy to do it. I’m hoping that by this weekend I’ll be feeling more like myself and I can finally get those accomplished.

I also had a list of things to do before my parents are here soon because my dad and I will be working on some projects. I had planned to do those errands this past weekend and only realized yesterday that I never got to do them and I have to make sure I get them done this weekend so that my dad and I can check all our projects off of the list we have.

I know I’ve had some bad colds in the past, but I think this one has been one of the worst ones I can remember. If I’m not feeling better soon, I am going to go to the doctor to make sure it’s nothing worse or something that I need medication to get over. But I really do feel like it’s just a cold and it’s a lot more severe than what I’m used to. And that’s why I’m ok with being behind on what I know I should be doing. Getting rest is so important when you are trying to get better. And that’s what my focus has been this past week and everything else just has to take a backseat.

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Default ThumbnailA Low Key Post (or I Guess Things Come In Threes) Default ThumbnailGetting In Some Extra Rest (or Feeling Like It’s A Super Long Holiday Weekend) Default ThumbnailThe Weirdness Of Being Sick Right Now (or Isolating Even More) Default ThumbnailGetting Sick Again (or Extending Some Of My Anxiety) Default ThumbnailMy Cold Caught Up With Me (or I Guess I Was Due To Get Sick) Default ThumbnailNot My Normal Workout Recap (or At Least I Was Feeling Ok During The Week)

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Convention Prep and Recovery (or Sorry For The Short Post)

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Comments Off on Convention Prep and Recovery (or Sorry For The Short Post)

Yesterday was the end of my union’s convention, and I will be writing a lot more about this tomorrow. But I made it through and it was an interesting weekend for sure!

I’m honestly exhausted (which is why this is going to be a short post), but I did a lot of my preparation for convention differently this year. I’m used to planning to be in a ballroom for hours each day, so I have a bag of stuff I need with me. I usually prepare to have whatever I might end up needing. This time, I was at home for the entire thing. I didn’t feel ready in a way because I didn’t do my prep work the same way. And even though I was home, sitting at home looking at a screen is tiring. I know that from working too. I don’t know if I prepped enough to be good with doing a virtual convention, but I did my best.

And I had some extra responsibilities this year. I was asked to be a part of a convention committee that is about tracking credentials. In past conventions, this would mean we would decide if someone who might have missed the cutoff to sign back in to vote could vote. But with a virtual convention, we didn’t have a signing in and out, so we didn’t have a lot to do. But I still had to go to a meeting to be prepared for what may come up. I hope I will be asked to be on this committee again in the future because I would love to be a part of it when there is decision-making to be done, but I was honored to be asked to be one of the few committee members this year.

I have a lot of thoughts about how the convention went this year, but I’ll share more about that in tomorrow’s post. I need to sit with my thoughts a bit and also decompress from the event. Even with it being virtual, I’m so tired and I know I need to rest and recover.

But I wanted to make sure I shared that I made it through the convention and that I am proud of so much of what happened. But I’ll write more about that tomorrow once I’ve gotten some sleep and can really think back on the weekend properly.

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Default ThumbnailVirtual Orientation (or Still Getting Ready For Convention) Default ThumbnailPreparing For A Virtual Convention (or My First Task For This Delegate Term) Default ThumbnailJust Dragging On (or Another Apology For Another Short Post) Default ThumbnailA Full Convention Weekend (or Preparation Pays Off) Default ThumbnailI Didn’t Think I Was This Sick (or This Will Be A Short Post) Default ThumbnailSorry For A Short Post (or Hopefully I Feel Better Soon)

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Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

Posted on January 29, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

When I was feeling sick from antibiotics, I dealt with a lot of random symptoms. Many of them were similar to what I deal with each month with pain and nausea, but they weren’t being resolved by the things I usually do to feel better. I was also dealing with other symptoms that made me just feel awful.

I was able to work and go to my workouts, but that’s about all I could do. I was exhausted because I was waking up constantly at night. I wasn’t eating well because I went from not being hungry to feeling so hungry and nothing seemed to be what I wanted. And I wasn’t drinking enough water (which is a rare issue for me to have since I tend to overhydrate) because for some reason drinking water was making me feel very full and my stomach was hurting.

I’m not proud of what I was doing while I was feeling sick because they really weren’t the best choices for me. The sleep issue was one that I couldn’t help too much, even though I probably could have tried to go to bed earlier so I would have maybe gotten a bit more sleep. But whatever sleep I would have gotten would have been interrupted, no matter how early I went to bed. That’s been a bit easier to get back to my normal routine than getting my eating back has been.

I didn’t do anything as bad as I have done in the past with binge episodes, but they weren’t good either. I was making bad choices constantly and I’m paying for it now. I don’t feel like myself and I just feel like I’m recovering from poor nutrition choices and I’m not feeling better. Fortunately, this is just a general uneasy feeling and not a sick feeling like the week before.

I was finally done with antibiotics over the weekend and I started working back toward what I know I need to be doing. But it hasn’t been easy to do, just like every other time I try to have better habits. And I’ve done this attempt so many times in the past and I know how frustrating it can be for me. But I have to do it because there really isn’t another choice for me.

I’m trying to get back to some basics with food. As much as I want to learn how to cook a lot of good options for myself, I also know that having too many options can be a bad thing for me. I need to be a bit more regimented in what I keep in my house and what I might each for each meal. It’s not the most fun thing to do or super interesting, but it’s a way to reset myself before I focus on adding more things back in. And I’ve been wanting to do the autoimmune protocol diet for a while so I might not be adding things back in once I do reset things for myself. But that’s not something I’m focusing on right now.

Right now, it’s about making sure I’m getting some good food into my body every day, even if that’s not all I eat all the time. And I need to get back to drinking more water on a regular schedule so I can stay hydrated but make sure I don’t start overhydrating myself again. I’m not too focused on eating on a regular schedule since that is a much bigger struggle for me that I don’t need to worry about right now. But I do need to make sure that I eat enough so I don’t have horrible cravings.

As things are so often in my life, it’s a huge balancing act to figure out the right combination of foods and schedule so that I’m not swinging too far one way or another. And while weight loss isn’t the point for me right now with trying to reset myself, I know it will be a result of my efforts because the poor choices I was making last week did make me gain weight.

Hopefully, in a week or so I will be back to a slightly more normal situation and I can focus on improving it more from that point. But I need to get back to my normal first before I make more changes. I’ve made the mistake of trying to do too much at one time with fixing my eating and I have seen it backfire. So I’m going to go slowly this time and hopefully I can prevent the issues I’ve had in the past. But if nothing else, I just want to be back to my normal and reset myself so I’m not feeling like I went so far back to old habits and I’m stuck there.

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Default ThumbnailMy Cold Caught Up With Me (or I Guess I Was Due To Get Sick) Default ThumbnailYup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me) Default ThumbnailHaving Bad Days (or Did I Make Myself Sick) Default ThumbnailBeing Sick (or Feeling Off) Default ThumbnailFeeling Sick Just Isn’t Fun (or I Was Already Doing Nothing) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track)

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The Longest Week (or Having A Regular Work Week Again)

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Comments Off on The Longest Week (or Having A Regular Work Week Again)

The holidays are a bit odd with my job. Since so many holidays fall on a Monday and my work is Tuesday-Saturday, I don’t typically get days off. The only holidays we get off are the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. And it’s really bad when the 4th of July or the December holidays are on Sundays or Mondays since those are the days we don’t work. That happened in 2017.

I know I’m really lucky with my job and I’m incredibly grateful for it, but it was annoying when I didn’t feel like I got extra time off for the holidays. But this year was different. I got extra long weekends because the December holidays were on Tuesday/Wednesday. And I took advantage of having those and really enjoyed my time off. I didn’t do much, but I relaxed and spent some time catching up on life. I didn’t always know what day of the week it was and I occasionally mixed up what day or what time my shift was, but those moments were brief and didn’t really affect things too much.

Having 2 weeks in a row that had short work weeks were amazing. I felt like I had a real break from things and I was feeling refreshed and ready to start the year off right and work hard. And that feeling stayed there until this week happened.

This was the first full work week back since the holidays and it has felt like it lasted a month. I feel like this was because of a few different reasons. Obviously, having work each day felt weird when I had probably gotten used to having those short work weeks. I also haven’t been sleeping well so I’ve been tired in the mornings. And I haven’t had much I have had to do after work (I kept my schedule open on purpose) so I think my time has been blending together a bit. I usually try to step away from my computer as soon as I’m done with work, but the past few days I’ve had to stay on my computer for one reason or another. Sometimes I’ve been on my computer for another 3 or 4 hours after my work shift ended. That is just too long to be sitting behind a computer and I am to blame for those scheduling issues. But it also makes it feel like my workday lasts a lot longer and I don’t have as much of a break between one shift ending and another shift starting.

It only took 2 weeks to get used to a shorter workweek, so hopefully, it will only take 2 weeks to get used to my normal schedule again. So that would mean that next week or the week after I shouldn’t be feeling like the week is lasting longer than normal. And I’m trying to do a lot better with my sleep now and I know that it will take a few days for that to be felt in my body. Having to stay on my computer might not be something I can completely resolve, but it’s something I am aware of and trying to figure out what solutions I can find.

I will say that it does make me feel a bit better that I’m not alone in this feeling. Lots of my friends have mentioned how this week has felt really long and they couldn’t believe we were in only the second week of the month. I think because I’m so aware of how I’m feeling that sometimes I think I’m the only one going through something and I stress a bit that I need to fix it. But hearing that other people are going through the same thing right now makes me feel like maybe this is just something random that is affecting a lot of people and not something I need to work too hard to fix. But I still want to find solutions on my own because I know some things affect me longer than they affect others.

At least I’ve got my weekend coming up. I don’t mind working on Saturdays because they are shorter shifts and I don’t feel like I really spent a weekend day working. The only thing it really affects is that I don’t usually go out late on a Friday night since I have to be up so early on Saturdays. But that is definitely a normal feeling for me and I’m looking forward to my weekend and having some relaxing time. I don’t have much planned yet, but I hopefully will figure out something fun to do. And that fun should get me ready for next week’s work and I’m hoping that next week feels like a normal week and not an endless week.

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Default ThumbnailScheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is) Default ThumbnailLow Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend) Default ThumbnailEnd Of Another Week (or Almost Back To Work) Default ThumbnailLast Regular Workout Week Of 2019 (or Still Pushing Through) Default ThumbnailWork Work Work (or Another Very Part Time Job) Default ThumbnailWork Lunches (or Prepping for The Week)

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Having Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out)

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Comments Off on Having Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out)

I was really expecting to be able to go out and be social this past weekend. I had a party I was supposed to go to and I was excited to get out and see my friends. And through most of the week, I was feeling up for it and ready to go. But then it seemed like everything hit me on Saturday and I was exhausted.

I think a part of it was how crazy my work has been lately. It’s the busy season right now and it seems like the busy season is worse than ever. There have been times that I have 3 customers in online chats, 1 customer on the phone, and several other customers trying to call. Everyone working has been busy like this so it’s not that I’m picking up the slack from someone else. It’s exhausting having to multitask like that and the customers are bringing up some very complicated issues. There have been some calls where I’m working with a customer for over an hour because either they have a hard issue or keep adding new questions. When I’m done with work, I need to decompress. It’s not always like this, but lately, it’s been every day.

And Saturday was no different from the rest of the workweek. It was a crazy day and when I was done I just couldn’t think of doing much else. I did go to my workout since that helps me feel like the workday is over, but when I was home I didn’t want to have to leave my house. I tried to pull it together and go out, but I ended up falling asleep and not waking up until close to when I wanted to go to bed. I texted my friend who was hosting the party and hopefully she understands why I couldn’t make it.

Sunday was a lot of the same. I was tired even though I slept more than I had in a while. And my body was not feeling so great so I had to do a lot of stretching before getting out of bed. I had some errands that I had to do, so I went out to do those and then went back home to relax a bit more. I needed to recharge and I’m glad I didn’t push myself to go out. But at the same time, it’s a little sad that I wasn’t able to.

I try not to feel like I’m missing out too much when I choose to stay home. I know there will more parties and outings in my future and missing some won’t affect me being able to go to others in the future. But I was frustrated because I really thought I was finally over the exhaustion I had from the convention and was ready to go out again. But this exhaustion was caused by other issues and no matter how recovered I felt from the convention, I still would have been affected by my work.

Everyone I work with is hoping that things calm down after Halloween. We are still in the busy season through the end of the year, but Halloween is extra busy (just like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day). Hopefully, we are back to the normal busy season next week and I won’t feel as overwhelmed and exhausted at the end of the workday. And if I am, then I really need to do some work on how to manage this better. I’m sure I need more sleep than I’m getting right now. But maybe I also need to add a few other stress management things into my life to help. I’m not sure. I just need to get through this week before I can focus on it since this week is hopefully the craziest and most exhausting week of the year.

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I Needed A Week Long Nap (or Dealing With Exhaustion)

Posted on October 22, 2019 | Comments Off on I Needed A Week Long Nap (or Dealing With Exhaustion)

Last week was not a very exciting week for me. After everything that happened, I was exhausted. Physically exhausted, mentally exhausted, and emotionally exhausted. If I had just had the convention, I probably would have been exhausted for the week. Having that plus my grandma passing away brought my exhaustion to a new level.

I have realized that I didn’t really give myself time to grieve much in the days after my grandma passing away. I had to stay focused on the work I was doing at the convention and that’s what she would have wanted me to do. I was grateful for the distraction, but that also meant that things finally started to hit me more last week when I had the time to think about them. I had a big breakdown on the day she passed away, but after that, I had mini-breakdowns each day. I have been able to get myself together after a few minutes, and it gets easier each day. I’m worried that it will hit me so much more at Thanksgiving, but there’s nothing I can do in advance to help make that easier.

Crying and grieving is tiring. And being exhausted from lack of sleep didn’t help that feeling. So last week, I really just spent the week doing what I had to do and not much else. I worked and went to my workouts, but I didn’t do much beyond that. The week was a bit of a blur for me, but I honestly don’t think I left my house much last week. I went to the grocery store and ran errands, but I didn’t do anything social. And being home was probably the best thing for me because I could rest when I needed to.

And I also needed to focus on a lot of housework. The days I was working at the convention were packed and I wasn’t home much at all. When I got home, I would put my stuff down, make sure my bag was packed for the next day and go to bed. I had piles of things around my house that I put down and knew I would deal with later. And last week was the later time I had to worry about it. Fortunately, a lot of the things I had around my house was stuff that I didn’t need or had a very obvious storage place. But there are a few things that I still need to figure out if I will keep them and if I do where they will go. And besides organizing, I had the normal cleaning stuff I had to do. I hated how dirty my house felt because I hadn’t cleaned in a few days. I finally have it back to how I like it and it feels much better.

While I don’t love that I basically took a week to recover from a crazy few days, it’s exactly what I needed to do. If I hadn’t taken that time, I think I would still be dragging on a bit right now. I would have pushed myself to do more and I would still be exhausted. I’m still grieving a bit and dealing with the emotional exhaustion, but it’s much easier to deal with when I’m not physically exhausted. And I am dealing with a lot of pain and nausea right now which I think would have been much harder to deal with if I was tired. I still am taking naps occasionally, but this is normal for me when I’m feeling nauseous.

And at least I’ve got some fun things planned for this week and I’m feeling much more up to them than I would have last week. I’ve got some Halloween parties to go to and a Halloween costume to make. I haven’t started the work on my costume, but I have the idea and hopefully, it will be easy to make once I have the supplies. And since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays I think that will boost my spirits even more.

And even though I am not fully back to my normal self, I’m glad I’m much closer than I was last week. I am still being gentle with myself and making sure I don’t overschedule things, but I also know that if I don’t start doing things again that it will also affect me. I just have to slowly add things back in and not be worried to cancel them if I need to.

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Default ThumbnailHaving Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out) Default ThumbnailWorking Through General Panic Issues (or Dealing With Lack Of Control) Default ThumbnailA Bit Of Self-Care Fail (or Maybe I Was Hard On Myself) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Getting Back To Normal (or Still Dealing With The Same Old Issues) Default ThumbnailA Good Workout Week (or Only Dealing With Old Issues) Default ThumbnailAnother Weird Workout Week (or Dealing With A Different Type Of Nausea)

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Doing More Tracking (or Finding Out Some Data Is Just Too Emotional)

Posted on May 1, 2019 | Comments Off on Doing More Tracking (or Finding Out Some Data Is Just Too Emotional)

Last month, I had a goal to work on tracking a few things in my life. I knew that things were getting a bit out of control and tracking is a way to gain control again. All of the things I was planning on tracking were things I have tracked before so I figured it should be a relatively easy challenge. And of course, since I thought it would be easy it wasn’t.

It was easy for me to track my spending and income. This was a habit that I had been doing for a while and it was pretty easy to get back into it. There were a few moments where I forgot to track something or had to spend more time than I would have liked double checking things, but it’s been relatively easy. It helps that right now I have more money coming in than I’m used to so I’m not seeing everything in red. But I want to get this habit back to where it was so I’m ready when things aren’t as great.

I also wanted to do accurate tracking of my weight and food. And this is where I struggled last month. Tracking my weight wasn’t too horrible, but I’ve realized that it’s not something I want to keep up as regularly as I was. I have some big weight fluctuations due to hormones and even when I know that my weight gain isn’t real it feels that way. It’s not easy when the scale says you are up 10 pounds overnight and all your clothes don’t fit. I know that it’s due to swelling and water weight, but I still hate seeing that. I need to figure out a better way to track weight because I need to do it, but I can’t do it as often right now. I’m not sure if weekly would be right and mostly doesn’t seem often enough, so this is something I will have to play with.

And tracking my food was kind of a disaster. Food tracking is such an emotional thing for me and I thought doing tracking would help take that away a bit. But instead, it made it more emotional and I could sense my moods being affected if I had a good day or bad day. I know I do need to do some tracking, but I’m not sure how to do it without the emotional tug I was feeling. It may have just been harder for me this time because of where I am in my life and outside factors, but whatever it was I know I failed at tracking food last month.

And for this month, I have another tracking related challenge. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am not sleeping enough. I have had several days of only getting 4 hours of sleep. Part of this problem is how well I have trained myself to get up at the same time every day. Even if I go to bed really late, I’m still up at 7. If I sleep in, it’s only until 7:30 or 8 and that’s not that late if I get to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. It’s not always that I am out late, sometimes I am in bed at a reasonable time and I stay up reading. Before I know it, it’s 2am and I’m still awake.

I know in a perfect world I would be asleep by 11pm so that I will get at least 7 hours of sleep even if I wake up in the middle of the night. That’s not totally realistic since there are some times that I’m just getting home at 11. But I think setting a goal to be in bed by midnight on those late nights and by 11:30 on not late nights isn’t too hard. And I need to set a limit on my nighttime reading to make sure that my lights are being turned off by midnight. It probably sounds weird to have to limit how much I read at night, but sometimes I just get so into a book that I forget that I need to put it down.

I think working on having a set bedtime also relates to better time management in general. I don’t have to get everything done in the evenings that I make myself do. I can save some for the next day or if I was better with how I use my time I could probably get them done during the day. Procrastination is my enemy when trying to get better about when I go to sleep.

I know that some people have alarms to remind them to go to sleep, and I’m going to look into those options. I might just add something to my daily reminders to remind me that I need to start winding down. I already have my phone and computer set to reduce the blue light I see in the evening, but I don’t have that for my tv. I know that they have blue light blocking glasses so those might be a good investment for me (I just don’t know how they would work if I was also wearing my regular glasses if I took my contacts out). I also am going to look at what parts of my evening routine I can do earlier so that it’s not a lot of self-care work at the end of the day and I’m tired.

I’m ready to not feel as tired anymore. This has been a problem I’ve been dealing with for a while but it has gotten significantly worse in the past few months. I know that getting more sleep will benefit so many aspects of my life and I can’t wait to see those benefits. And hopefully it will have some benefits I’m not expecting and my life will be even better when I’m well-rested a majority of the time.

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I Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days)

Posted on July 12, 2018 | Comments Off on I Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days)

I just wrote about the heat and how it had been affecting me lately. Fortunately since I wrote that post, it has been a bit better. It’s still very hot, but it’s much more tolerable. My little a/c unit can finally get my house below 80 degrees at night and I’m not feeling as heat sick.

But just because it’s better now doesn’t mean that this entire week has been affected by how it was earlier. I wrote about how I hadn’t been sleeping that well. I’m not the best sleeper, but I can usually get 6 hours of sleep when I’m in bed for 7-8 hours (I do toss and turn a lot). With this heat, I had been averaging about half of that. Over the weekend (when I wrote the earlier post), it hadn’t really affected me too much. I was tired, but I was still able to get things done during the day.

But by Monday, this lack of sleep really caught up with me. I was supposed to attend a union event on Monday evening that I had been looking forward to for about a week. It was about the commercial contracts and I knew that there was going to be a lot of information shared that I wanted to know about. And I knew that a bunch of my friends would be there and I love having a chance to catch up with friends at different events.

I didn’t have work on Monday but I did have some things I needed to do that morning and afternoon. I got those things done and went home to decompress a bit before getting dressed and leaving my house to go to the meeting. The next thing I knew, it was a few hours later. I ended up taking a nap but it felt more like passing out for several hours because I don’t even remember laying down on my couch.

I figured that after that on Monday, maybe I’d be doing better. I slept better Monday night to Tuesday morning but within an hour of starting work I was feeling ready to go back to sleep. I couldn’t ever remember being that tired before and I felt awful that I might not be pulling my weight at work. I fought to stay awake during my 7 hours of work (I may have fallen asleep briefly a few times while working) and as soon as I was done with work I went to lay down on my bed to try to nap again.

I woke up almost 4 hours later! I ate some dinner when I woke up and tried to stay awake for a few more hours and then went to bed at my normal time. I was worried I might not be able to sleep because of taking such a long and late nap. I did struggle a bit falling asleep but I was asleep within maybe 30 minutes of trying to sleep. And I woke up my normal time on Wednesday morning feeling so much more refreshed.

I know they say that if you don’t sleep that you can’t catch up on sleep by sleeping in another day. But I honestly finally feel like I got the sleep that I didn’t get over the weekend. Maybe because I had such a severe sleep deficit and that it was during such a short time period that somehow I did make up the time I lost. I usually so good about going to bed and waking up at the same times every day. Even when I stay up late, I’m almost always up at the same time (which can be annoying at times). But I think these past few days really affected me more than I expected and I really just want to be back to normal.

I know that it’s not a bad thing to have lazy days every now and then. But I feel like I had just gotten over being sick and all the lazy days that I had when I was not feeling well. I also hate that I’ve been lazy because it makes for boring posts on here! I was really hoping to be able to write about the union meeting that I didn’t make it to. And I really haven’t been doing much this week because of feeling off and I don’t know what I’ll be writing about tomorrow yet. I’m sure I’ll think up something, but I really prefer it when my life is interesting so I know I have some good content for you all to read!

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Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

Posted on May 2, 2016 | Comments Off on Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

I had a 4 workout week this past week. I totally needed a 4 workout week (it was actually the only 4 workout week I had for April), but I think that some of my activities on my off days (or before my workouts) made it seem a bit tougher than it usually feels. Of course, I also might have felt it more because it had been way too long since my last 4 workout week and I’ve learned that I need to make sure that I’m doing them more often so I don’t get out of the habit of it.

I think my Monday workout went pretty well. It was a day that had endurance, strength, and power and those can be really fun. It was a switch day, so I was never on the treadmill for that long at a single stretch. The endurance block was full of longer push paces, but those weren’t too bad for me. The one treadmill thing that got to me was the strength section. Strength on the treadmill means hills and sometimes the power walkers are expected to go much higher on the incline than I’m ok with right now (I’m wondering if my calf will ever feel back to normal again). I tried my best, but I’m really not ok going above 8% (or on really good days 10%) on the treadmill. So I had to keep my inclines lower than I would have liked, but I tried to bump up the speed when I could.

The floor work wasn’t too bad, but my body wasn’t loving the pop jacks or knee tucks. Knee tucks are much easier for me, but they can be a struggle when I’m tired or my hip is feeling ready to be done. But what I liked the best about this workout was that the end was the endurance block that was a partner challenge. So I felt extra motivated then because I had a partner counting on me and the treadmill part of the partner workout was a 1 minute push to all-out on the treadmill so it was pretty fast.

Wednesday was a tough day for me at first. I had gone to Disneyland after the workout on Monday, and I might have overdone it a bit with the walking after a workout. Tuesday I was really sore and Wednesday I was still feeling a bit off. I tried to do some stretching work to make my legs and hip feel better, but when I’m having an off day sometimes there is nothing I can do to make it better. So when I got to the workout, I was happy to see that it was a run/row day. All the treadmill blocks were pretty short (I think the longest I was on the treadmill at a time was under 4 minutes), and the rowing wasn’t too bad. The rows were between 100-200 meters each time, so that was basically under a minute of rowing. I tried to take a moment between the treadmill and the rower to catch my breath and make sure I wasn’t pushing my hip too much. I think I did ok with that because when I got to the floor block, it went really well for me!

I was doing my squats with 20 pound weights in each hand and managed to do all my arm work with the same weights! I’m getting close to being able to move to 25 pound weights for my chest presses (somehow that is where my upper body is strongest), but I’m still doing great with 20 pounds and the last few moves of each set can be a struggle. But knowing that I’m getting close to moving up to the next weight makes me feel pretty awesome. We also had lunge work to do that day, but I wasn’t able to do my lunges how we were supposed to (with our back leg on the weight bench). So I did my regular lunges instead and didn’t feel too bad about it because I was feeling so great about the weight work I had already done.

Friday was an interesting day. Before the workout, I had put a challenge out online that for every donor we get on the film Kickstarter, I would do a burpee before the class. I really was hoping we’d get a bunch of donors, but we only got 2. But then again, that meant I only had to do 2 burpees. I’m not the prettiest doing burpees because of the hip issues, but since I was filming this to share online I tried to look awesome doing them. Sadly, trying to look awesome also made both of my hips hurt so badly (even with only doing 2 burpees), so I was already feeling a bit sore before the workout even started.

Friday was a solid 30 minutes on the treadmill to start. We had a couple of 2 minute pushes, and those felt like 3 minutes or more to me. But I managed to get through it. When we had to do hills, I had to keep them pretty low (I basically stayed at 6%), but I did bump up my speed to balance it out. On the floor, I got to use the 20 pound weights again for my chest and arm work and we had some shorter rows. By the end of the workout, my hips were feeling a bit better than they did right after those 2 burpees (I’m so grateful the workout didn’t have any burpees in it!). But even though I was feeling a bit better, I knew that Saturday was going to have to be a bit of an easier day for me.

Saturday I was using the bike instead of the treadmill. The cardio blocks were back to back so I was on the bike for 30 minutes straight. It technically wasn’t a distance challenge day, but we were given a distance to try to get to in class. The runners on the treadmill were supposed to do a 5K (3.1 miles) or better in the 30 minutes, so I figured on the bike I should try to go 12 miles since for run/row days the bike has to do 4 times the distance of the treadmills. We had a lot of long pushes between the treadmill blocks. It seemed like a majority of them were between 2 or 3 minutes and I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the blocks. But once we were told to switch to the floor, my distance on the bike was 12.1 miles, so I was pretty happy about that.

The floor work was a lot of should work and we had some longer rows too. One block was an 800 meter row and the other was a 400 meter row. I managed to do both without having to take a break, but it wasn’t easy. And I was under the time that we were supposed to be under for the rower, so that was pretty awesome. At the end of each floor block, we had a 1 minute plank challenge. I still have to do planks on my knees (on my toes hurts my calf), but being on my knees also allows me to focus much better on my form. I could feel the planks in my core a lot, but I was able to keep going for the entire minute both times.

This week, I know I’ll be doing 3 regular workouts. There is also a dri-tri on Saturday that I’m debating about doing. I know I’ve felt left out in the past when I didn’t do the dri-tri, and I think that maybe I should just push myself to do it. But I also somehow don’t feel ready for it yet. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I will have a decision made on whether or not I will go for it. This dri-tri is the preliminary for the regional dri-tri, but since I know that I will not be a contender for representing my studio if I do it my focus will only be to finish and not to beat anyone else. I know that if I do it, the chances of me being the last person to finish is really high, but if I go for it I think finishing is the only goal that I’ll have in my head.

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Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Posted on April 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Between my 5K from Saturday, dancing my butt off at the wedding on Sunday, and doing a lot of walking with the dog all weekend; my legs were feeling a bit tired this week for my workouts. I was feeling it every morning when I woke up (and I was basically limping in for the first hour or so each day) so I was grateful that all my workouts this past week were in the afternoon so I wasn’t feeling too horrible. But even though I was not as sore during my workouts, I still was trying to be careful because I knew if I worked too hard that I would be sore from longer than I wanted to be.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday afternoon (I wasn’t sure what time I’d be getting home on Monday so I didn’t want to have to stress about getting back in time for a workout). I was still hurting quite a bit on Tuesday so I was so happy to see that it was going to be a run/row day. Not only was it a run/row day, it was called the easiest run/row day ever! My sore legs were so grateful to hear that!

The run/row format was pretty easy. The first round was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. The next round was a 1 minute push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. Each round just increased the push pace by 30 seconds and the rest stayed the same. The longest one was a 3 minute push pace and if we got past that we were supposed to work our way back up. I did the first few rounds at 3.7 miles an hour because they were short and I was still feeling a bit slow from my race so I wanted to prove to myself that I can be faster. The next few rounds were at 3.6 miles an hour and the 2 1/2 and 3 minute rounds were at 3.5 miles an hour. I made it through all the rounds, but I didn’t make it back up. But I’m ok with that. I was going really fast for me and even though I was progressively getting slower I was still staying on the faster side for me. And since the treadmill time was so limited, my legs didn’t hurt too much by the time we switched to the floor.

We had a lot of squats on the floor which were fine for me. But then when we did lunges I struggled a lot because my calves were feeling so tight. I knew they were tight a bit because that was the soreness I felt, but I guess I didn’t realize how much the treadmill would affect me. So the lunges were done with less movement than I would normally do, but I felt pretty great about everything that I did.

Wednesday was a day that had all 3 types of workouts (endurance, strength, and power). It was a 30 minutes on the treadmill straight type of day and my legs weren’t having it. I tried really hard to not have to take breaks in the middle of the blocks, but I was really hurting. I realized after class that maybe I should have taken one of my stronger painkillers instead of the ones that I normally take, but since it’s been a while since I’ve needed one of the strong ones I didn’t even think about taking one. During the strength block, I was supposed to go really high on the inclines on the treadmill, but I just kept it at 8% for the entire time even though the runners had to do an incline higher than that. I just focused on finishing the cardio and not working out super hard.

For the floor time, I tried to do all my lower body work with 20 pound weights and all of my arm work with 15 pound weights. We also had a lot of ab work on the floor with medicine balls. Typically I use 8 pounds for a medicine ball, but there were none of those left so I used 10 pounds. I felt the difference (and I felt it in my abs when I woke up the next morning) and while it wasn’t easy I was able to do it.

Friday was another run/row day! Someone commented about how there have been so many run/row days lately and I don’t think they were happy about it. But those really are my favorite days (or a second favorite to partner day workouts). This time the run/row was a bit tougher than the one on Tuesday. For power walkers, the longest walk was .13 miles and the shortest was .05 miles. And for all of us the rows were between 250 and 100 meters. The plan was designed to do at least one entire round of all the segments, and I was able to get through the entire plan and was starting on the first one again when time was called. By Friday, my legs were feeling a bit more normal (having Thursday off helped a lot) so all my treadmill segments regardless of length were 3.5 miles an hour. It helped that all treadmill segments were less than 2 1/2 minutes, but all these little sprints are helping me get ready to bringing my base pace up from 3.4 to 3.5 miles an hour again (where I was before my torn calf).

On the floor, there were a lot of squats and lunges again. For both things, I was using 20 pound weights (one weight in each hand). With my squats those aren’t too bad, but it’s always tough for me to do lunges with weights in my hands because I don’t balance that well with lunges. But I took my time, put the weights down if I needed to steady myself, and was able to make it through. We finished up the floor block with 4 minutes of abs using a BOSU ball and when we were done I was so glad I made it through.

I debated about doing a 4th workout, but I didn’t want to push it too much. Friday was the first day my legs were feeling almost normal again and I didn’t want to overdo it and prevent myself from feeling normal again this week. I’m not exactly sure when my next 4 workout week will be, but it will need to be soon. I’m signed up for the Triple Buddy Challenge at Orangetheory. From April 18th until May 18th I’m partnered up with 2 friends to try to get in 45 workouts between us. So each of us will need to do 15 workouts. I’ve done this before (and we were successful) so I’m not too worried about it. I just need to plan out the next month of workouts to make sure that I do my part or more to make sure my team wins!

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