This wasn’t intentional at all: 2 days away from exercise and my training plan because of how insane Friday night was at work. We were short staffed all over the restaurant and huge groups were coming in to celebrate graduations at the same time while the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and online orders poured in… the perfect storm of problems. Usually even on busy nights where we close at midnight, I can sit back with the paperwork and maybe leave at 1 a.m. at the latest because the last customers might not make it out the door til 12:15 and we have to clean and shut things down. Nope–me and the kitchen staff didn’t get out the door til 2:20 a.m. Saturday, staggering out like an army in retreat.

I got maybe 2 hours of sleep on Saturday even though I was off for the day. At my age, that was NOT at all helpful. I was awake with the sun because my parakeets don’t give a flock about how much sleep I still need. And I need to wake at the same time (roughly) each day, so after washing my face & getting the bleariness out of my eyes, I was up.

But boy was I sluggish. And I was angry because of how much went wrong the night before, and I didn’t feel the morning crew needed to deal with what wasn’t finished. I checked my mower and needed another battery, also, so I figured two birds, one stone: stop by work and get some stuff wrapped up, then go to the hardware store for another battery.

I was in a t-shirt and shorts and flip-flops before opening, so definitely not ready to work. I went to take care of some of the dish prep that usually would be done and utensils and just finished up when some of them came in. I had to tell them about the disaster that was the night before and the manager about the discrepancy I couldn’t figure out (I was too bleary eyed to check for a 3rd time like usual). We got it taken care of. I felt better not leaving things so awful for the staff, because they didn’t need it.

But the evening & morning took it’s toll; only two hours of sleep had murdered my whole day. My body was moving, but my mind was not. I had to go take an hour nap (wish it could’ve been longer) because I probably would’ve hurt myself going out to mow or clean up the yard. It would’ve just set me back more, and my eyes hurt so badly from the light

Yeah, I’ve got the song “Brain Stew” from Green Day stuck in my head… it fit perfectly.

The night’s rest wasn’t enough and come Sunday morning, I missed exercise because I was still sluggish with a terrible headache. So that was TWO days without in a row. I told myself that when ill, I would have to take days off, too. It’s disappointing because the clock is ticking and I’m still in early training mode, but that’s the reality I had to face.

It just stinks that being so sleep deprived the older you get can really hurt more. The good thing was even after a busy evening Sunday(thankfully NOT as crazy as Friday), I was just tired enough that I could sleep and wake up refreshed. I didn’t have much time to exercise, but got some in because I have a 10-hour shift ahead of me and wanted to feel human again.

I hope to avoid such slumps in the future. Though I couldn’t help the timing and being so late (just VERY glad I didn’t have to open the next morning because I would’ve passed out part through shift), it really hurt to essentially have a wasted day movement-wise. I feared backsliding into laziness because “well, you already ruined this day, might as well keep going.”

To my surprise, I didn’t fall back into that old habit. That was my biggest worry.

I had my plans written down, my goals posted and the countdown timer in my face, reminding me that it’s just a setback and I’ll get on track again. I stopped carb-loading (why do I only seem to crave carbs when days are bad?) and calmed down. The evening became better, and yesterday there were headaches, but some good food in me and lots of water to re-hydrate helped boost my energy.

Just gotta remember…