Crash! Listen to Your Body.

Well, I felt like giving an update on the training, because things definitely took an unexpected turn this weekend. 

Things started off great!  I'd been getting up early to get a pre-work run in, and that was going really well!  I guess I didn't really see how hard I was pushing myself until things got a little weird Friday night...  Husband and I went to dinner with friends to an Indian restaurant Friday night, and that was a lot of fun!  Very interesting, but a very cool dining experience.  We went early, as Husband had a very early tee time on Saturday.  When we got home from dinner, around 7:45, I changed clothes and went to bed!  I didn't plan on really going to sleep that early.  I think it was more of a "I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes before I read for a bit" type of thing (haha, we all know how that goes).  Well, obviously, my body was much more tired that I though.  I slept for about 1 1/2 hours, got up to wash my face and brush my teeth, and then I went back to bed!  Saturday morning, I started waking up at 5:30...  That's super early.  But I went with it.  There was no more going back to sleep, so Husband and I decided that we'd just get up and get going and take a nap once he got back from playing golf.  So I went running, then had a really great workout, got to talk catch up with a friend via a phone call, then met with another friend to catch up.  When I was getting home from visiting with my friend, Husband was just pulling in from (what was unfortunately a very bad game of) golf... :/  So, he wasn't too thrilled with that.

Neither of us was tired, despite being out in the heat and on the go since about 6:00 that morning, and we decided to go get some food and sit on a patio and have a margarita!  It was a beautiful day, perfect for a patio afternoon!  I don't know why, but we never got really tired, so we were up later than we expected or should have been on Saturday night. 

Sunday...  Sunday rolls around, and I have that same overwhelming sense of exhaustion that I had Friday night.  I just could not pull myself out of bed, and when I finally did...  Yuck...  I got sick.  Back to bed I went, and I stayed there the entire morning and into the afternoon.  I don't ever do that.  I really don't like wasting a day, but my body was definitely telling me it needed some serious recovery.  And I let it have it!  Once I pulled myself out of bed, it was movies and reading and relaxing.

Moral of the story: Listen to your body.  It's good to push yourself, but not too hard.  Learn to listen.  Don't fight going to bed just because you feel like it's weird to go to bed at 7:45.  If you need sleep, make it a priority to get it.  Don't make yourself workout or force a run if you're body isn't feeling up to it.  You'll do more damage than you will good.  Give yourself plenty of time to recover, but get back out there as soon as you can!  I guess we all have days where pushing ourselves catches up with us.  It's not easy, especially for me, to take more than one day off, but all the sleep that I got tells me that working out may need to take a back seat to giving myself adequate time to rest and recover. 

One of the main purposes of this blog is to keep an accurate record of my training, good days and bad days both, so that is what this is.  It's a documented account of a lesson on taking a step back and listening to what my body needs.  I urge you all to do the same.  In the long run, it's safest, and it will get you the best results. :)