day 23: ex.haustion and free coffee that can't cure it

okay, okay. so i pushed myself really hard and didn't sleep enough. this was obviously a mistake for which i am paying. but, whatever. i'm learning that you can't get less than eight hours of sleep when you're making your body do 2.5+ hours of moderate exercise a day. that's a real thing.

mom, dad and aunt rita: i'm fine, please stop worrying. especially you, mom. i'm watching you. (seriously. mom. i'm fine.)

last night was...a little bit of a blur. as i mentioned in yesterday's post, it was not a happy evening. i got home a little after seven and decided to eat some popcorn, watch some parks and rec and take a nice little nap before my run. which, by the way, was supposed to be intervals.

warning: THIS PART IS MILDLY GROSS. but i couldn't fall asleep and when i started to consider getting up to get ready to run, i got really nauseated. like, dry heave for half an hour nauseated. okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.

i decided i was probably a little dehydrated (despite the freakish amount of water i ingest every moment of every day) and over-tired and that it would be a good idea to take the night off. also, intervals? normally that's a really important workout day, but since i'm pushing myself really hard during several parts of my bike ride, i think my stamina will improve anyway. not to mention that cross-training up giant steep hills things, which will help develop my muscle. biking is definitely not an option as a permanent replacement of interval runs, but for this week i think it will suffice.

and look, i know i shouldn't feel guilty about skipping my run yesterday (my net caloric intake was still slightly under 1,200...ugh) because it would've been unhealthy to run but i still feel a little bad. i'm going running tonight, but don't worry: i only have to go for 15 minutes. i could probably do that after raising a car above my head. (if i were actually strong enough to do such a thing.)

the most annoying thing about last night (yes, worse than nausea), was that i couldn't fall asleep. i finally popped some melatonin at 9:30 and went to bed a little after 10. then i slept through my alarm (5:15) and woke up at 5:55. i was supposed to meet miranda at 6:50, which is probably about a forty minute bike ride at a decent speed. i finally got on my bike after getting food ready for the day at 6:35 and booked it over to st. paul, where i found a cheerful miranda chatting with a new friend on the grass somewhere around 7:10. no big deal. twenty minutes late. goodness.

turns out miranda is also exhausted. (surprise! it's not like we've biked 95 miles this week. oh wait...) BUT the best part of the morning was that in celebration of bike/walk week, there were mini-parties all over the city. i passed two on my way to meet miranda, and then we went to the one in rice park (in front of the ordway) where there was free coffee, yummy bread, bananas, orange juice and cereal bars. oh, and we got interviewed (with miranda's new buddy) TWICE. on two different video cameras. how exciting. (read: infuriating.) but look how cute we looked!!!

Bike/Walk week party in Rice Park! (Me, left and Miranda, right)

now i'm at work, pushing through a bunch of little tasks while waiting for 18 billion people to approve things so i can keep working. story of my life. i guess sometimes it's a good thing to have a bunch of time to waste?

a few other things:

i'm going to run today, and depending on how i feel tomorrow, i will run or skip my run. i'm trying to be okay with that.

i get my heart rate monitor in the mail today! hopefully this one will not be horribly defective. i'm going to start heart rate training.

for those of you who don't know about the heart rate craze thing, it's a way of training that helps you to train your heart to do more while working less. basically, it makes your cardiovascular system much more efficient. having a lower heart rate (read: somewhat lower than your busting-my-ass heart rate but higher than your leisurely walk heart rate) means that more of the energy (calories) you're burning comes from fat (as opposed to carbohydrates). i learned all this from the personal trainer i had for a few months a few months ago, but i wasn't really hardcore about it and in any case, i worked out with her while i was injured and couldn't run, so i didn't use it on running. 

i'm excited to see what this does for my body. i've got about a month until the 10k, and i'm hoping that this type of training will help. it basically means that i'll have to run slowly (to keep my heart rate down) for awhile, but over time i'll be able to run faster and keep my heart rate around the same. this means that i will actually (hopefully!!) start burning fat and losing weight. get. pumped.

i'll post my totals later today...i wrote them down last night but left that notebook at home. by the way, i may or may not fall asleep at my desk today. slash on the way home. we're considering walking up one or more of the four AWFUL hills we have to hit on the way home. we'll see.