Day 22: The Cracks Are Beginning to Show

Well, I completely dropped the ball on being the early bird. Like the worm, I slept late, which means I hit up the Hot 26 at Riverflow after playing three games of flag football at work. This morning, I could not even put my socks on, I was so sore. Maybe going to hot yoga after an hour and a half of running around, diving and falling down staved off the worst of the soreness. Yes. That is what I will believe.

Luckily, though the room was very hot last night, I quite accidentally ended up in the coldest spot in the room. Yes, the universe is indeed taking care of me.

But the universe has a rather wicked sense of humor, because it decided it would be funny for me to wear my yoga shorts crotch-side-out. Very sexy.

And then I went home and slept for nine straight hours. Did not wake up once until my alarm clock went off. It was amazing—that hasn’t happened in years.

That’s the one thing that I’ve actually been concerned about during this whole process. As I near the end, I’m so tired that sometimes at work, I’m basically catatonic. I haven’t experimented enough with getting a full eight hours of sleep nightly, which I imagine would help but which I can never manage to give myself unless I am slap-ass exhausted. Yesterday I had to slip into the “sick room” and ball up on the little couch and sleep for almost an hour because I couldn’t keep my eyes open in front of my computer.

It may be the new medication I’m on. It may be too little sleep and too much exertion. It may be a little of both, combined with the basic necessity to adjust your number of hours of sleep to accord with your level of physical activity—the body needs the time asleep to heal. And yet Bikram says that the body operating at optimal capacity needs very little sleep indeed—he himself does not sleep much.

I guess the moral of this story is that I am not Bikram. And, while my body is surely operating better than it was, it is far from “optimal,” that’s for sure. Caffeine and craft beers—my two vices—are always gonna be gumming up the works!
 
Still, I said this before and I’ll keep saying it—it would likely be wise to start researching diet and supplements. I keep craving fish and more fish (and bananas, though not at the same time) for whatever reason, and I think it’s wise to listen to your body at times like this (unless suddenly you have pica and are eating lead paint and clay), but I wonder if I might have an iron deficiency…

Tonight I’ll have something deliciously red-meaty when I go to eat with Pat and Leslie and see how that treats me.

Day 23 was supposed to take place this morning, but I couldn’t drag my ass out of bed. My body could not have done a 6 AM and still had any resources left to get through the day. Thanks to preexisting plans, this means I’ll have to do a two-fer, maybe tomorrow… I know Rhonda says we’re not supposed to, but it’s been permitted in every other challenge I’ve ever participated in, and I’m giving myself permission today.

Part of teacher training is realizing that how you do one thing is how you do everything—it’s not good that I fell down on the job today in terms of getting to yoga. But the only way to do it would be to cancel plans that have been rescheduled too many times already or to leave work for 2.5 hours in the middle of the day… which would feel pretty dishonest. I don't doubt my commitment to this challenge in the least.

If the universe means for me to go to yoga today, I’ll end up going… and if not, then the universe apparently wants me to have the experience, at least once this challenge, of doing a twofer! (Twofers, btw, can be transcendental because you are so.very.tired).

Keep me posted, universe.