Too Important to Slow Down

My wife pointed out to me yesterday that I've been going full speed for five straight months.  It's only been recently that I've even considered taking weekends off.  I did start observing the Sabbath relatively early in this pandemic, and that did give me 24 hours of relative rest every week, that generally restarted on Saturday evenings after sundown.  Of course, I'm not completely keeping the Sabbath right now because the Vaccine Committee that I'm on meets on Saturdays, and this is too important to miss.  However, that's the way the last five months have been.  There's always something that's too important.

I wrote yesterday about hitting the wall.  That was actually an understatement.  I not only hit the wall, I ran into it at full speed!  I thought that I was feeling a little tired when I got up yesterday, but was sure it was just another day of fatigue that could be overcome. In some ways, this brings me back 10 months to Kona.   Every day that week, I'd wake up feeling like crap, only to mentally tell myself that it was just allergies and that I would be fine.  I wasn't fine.  I had a full blown sinus infection, an on race day, I remember briefly feeling, as I made my way out of Kona on the bicycle, how I'd have gotten off my bike and quit if it were any other race.  I immediately put that way of thinking out of my mind and literally ignored it until after I crossed the finish line nearly 13 hours later.  I've been reaching into that method for some time now, and I ran out of room yesterday. I can only pretend so much.

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping, came home and put all the groceries away (a process in itself that includes wiping everything down), and really thought about going out for my 8 mile run.  Fortunately, I realized that I was even more tired than I was that day in Kona, and that pushing through this could actually be detrimental to my health.  Nothing is too important to slow down.  I went back to bed for a couple of hours, before getting up and once again considering going out for my run.  I had a 3 1/2 hour Committee meeting that I couldn't miss, and that took priority.  I didn't want to wipe myself out before the meeting, so I thought, maybe, after the meeting...

I haven't felt this exhausted in quite awhile.  There was no running yesterday, just rest.  My wife, as I've noted, pointed out that this has been a long time in coming.  She was right.  As I write this today, there is no thought of running (well, not too much of one). I have a 2 1/2 hour Committee meeting, and then a plan to rest for the remainder of the day.  I need to let my mind and body recover.  I also need to realize that a day or two of recovery isn't enough.  It's taken me five months to get myself into this hole.  In the meantime, there are positives.  The running has definitely brought some positives to my physical well being.  I just need to trust in the concept that recovery will make me stronger!  I'm hoping that there is a similar approach to the emotional exhaustion.  Oh, yes, it's called meditation!