I'm With Stupid...

I deserve the Darwin award today. It's day 5 of this crazy attempt I made to drastically limit what I ate and I officially feel like crap.

I knew this would be difficult, and the hardest part is my energy levels. Not just for running but everything. I've been a walking disaster for the past 3 days. So today officially I'm ending it and going back to less restrictive eating.

I thought the hardest part would be missing certain foods but I had no cravings whatsoever. I didn't miss anything, except margaritas and beer, but I'm planning to continue to avoid both, because they aren't the culprit here.

So I tried the Joe Fejes approach and it didn't work. Maybe it's not a good time in my life either, given all the stress I've been experiencing with my work schedule and my increasing feeling of hopelessness about a viable future in my current so-called career. It doesn't help that I'm working nearly twice as much as I normally do, that saps my energy more than anything, and this was a really dumb time to attempt this.

The Fourth of July was a disaster. I planned to run the 5K and then help out with the kids' race afterwards, and then do more miles later in the day. I slept 13 1/2 hours on Wednesday, so I thought I'd be recovered. But I went to bed at 10 pm on the 3rd and planned to wake up at 6:30 and go to the 5K.

I woke up at 1:30 am feeling like crap. I was having a bizzarro dream too, about a doctor throttling me and yelling at me because I left part of a patient's orders undone. I dreamed that all my coworkers and all the other doctors I work with were all there while he was doing this. The doctor yelled at me, "You see how this feels? This is how the patient feels when you don't follow my orders!"

I said, "Take your hand off my throat now." So he did, and moved it to the side of my neck and continued trying to strangle me. I yelled, "I'm reporting you to the Board..." and everyone gasped out loud, and they all left the room. Then I went into a big auditorium where all of my colleagues were watching a video and when I walked in the room everyone ignored me.

After that vivid dream I felt sick to my stomach, and hung out in the bathroom for a while thinking I would puke but nothing happened. I felt nauseated until about 3:30 am, and I finally decided there was no way I was going to the race, I would need sleep more than anything.

Eventually my stomach settled down and I went back to bed. I slept until 10 am, and it was hot outside and I felt completely drained and unmotivated to run. I ended up doing not much of anything all day and even needed a nap. I slept for a while in the afternoon in the basement, I crashed on the floor after giving Iris a haircut. The butt cut.

When I woke up I felt a little better and talked Dennis into going to the store with me so we could get the ingredients to bake pupcakes for Isabelle's birthday, which is today. We decided to celebrate her birthday last night, before the fireworks got loud and she got scared. The pupcakes were a success, and the girls were happy. Our neighbor Stan came over and wished Isabelle a happy birthday and brought us a Thai basil plant that he had started from seed. I'm going to plant it in the herb garden.

I slept well last night and woke up at my normal time this morning. It rained overnight. Then I took iris out for a quick run but she didn't want to go very far. I brought her home and went out to run, and I was dragging ass. About 13 minutes into my run when I had stopped twice to pee and hadn't even covered a mile, I started walking. I thought through what I was doing and it made sense that this was a really dumb idea to try to do this combined with running and working this crazy schedule.

So, give me the Darwin Award, and don't worry, I didn't contribute to the gene pool, my girls were adopted. They are much smarter than me anyway. They eat pupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I will try eating a little more food today and see if my energy is better tomorrow. I hate to write another whole week of shitty training, but it looks like this month will be no better than June, given that I have another work week from hell coming up the middle of July, which will take me days to recover from. So frustrating. It's my own fault though.

I did attempt a half-assed weight workout- my triceps, biceps, and lats are sore now. And I did my abdominal workout, and I feel it! That's something, I guess. And my legs, they're still sore from the Rock Repeats on Sunday! I am a disaster!

What I really need is a week vacation in Death Valley. DAMMIT!