Excessive

My body puts up with a lot. I subject it to running (which, let's face it, is not a bad thing), ultimate, cycling every day, late hours, little sleep, poor nutrition, excessive coffee consumption, and even excessive celebration at times. It's generally a good sport. It still lets me do all of these things, despite the lack of rest and respect.

Today, it rebelled.

I suppose that background is warranted. I spent my weekend celebrating, as I am wont to do. I learned a pretty valuable lesson: Rain + cold + rubberized surface on the Burke-Gilman + tracks + Kristen = disaster. I hit the ground HARD.



I was most worried about my knees. They did not feel right at first, but it was late and I had no choice but to ride. How else would I get home? It felt fine on bicycle, but when I woke up the next day, walking felt strange, like there was some weakness every time I straightened my knee. But, they cooperated with my commute into work this morning (no falls!), and I decided that I needed to work off some of my weekend excess, and maybe test out my joints for any hidden complications.

So, there I was at work. I was stressed, and running on about 4 hours of sleep, a cup of yogurt, and about 4 mugs of drip coffee. Yep, I'm healthy. I was getting restless and annoyed with my job, so I decided to use my lunch break to take a jaunt around Lake Union. It was a great idea, in principle, anyway. Sometimes a good run will help me focus, get all the jitters out, and make me feel better in general. But, it was 44F, windy, a little bit rainy, and my legs were heavy. I mean, I hit a wall before I hit mile 3. It was that bad. Considering that I ran 10 miles without too much trouble a week ago, and that the days since have been littered with 3 and 4 mile runs, this should not have been a problem. I think the excesses of my life caught up with me: too many sleepless nights, too much partying, too much scrutiny over caloric count (rather than nutritional value of my food), too many accidents, too much stress. Lesson learned, body. You win this time. In the new year, I hope to scale some of this back a bit.

Sometimes, we just have off days, and I think this was one of mine. I wish that I had time to run tomorrow, just to get it out of my system, because it seems like we appreciate our good running days that much more after we disappoint ourselves. But, I do believe strongly in the value of rest days, and of a healthy balance between social life and running. Look out, Wednesday. I have my eyes on you.