Activitybased Lifestyle

As promised, I woke up early today so I could drive to the park and do a long run. I did run for two hours. Obviously I was hurting in the end but I still managed to work for five hours afterwards. The moment I had the chance, I immediately quit work and went home to rest. I have a good feeling I will be able to race next Sunday. After that, oh well, I don't know. My first goal is to provide myself two days off per week. I think this will be possible given the many Therapists now who are picking the slack. The economy is driving many to add more assignments at work. I am done with that, it's about time to give the job to the younger PTs. With two days off in a row, I can run more distances because I have the following day to rest. I don't know how this will work but I think it's possible. The kids are done with school so I need not work as hard anymore. Besides, at 46, I just could not push myself hard anymore. As much as I wanted to - today for example, I just wanted to be on my bed the first chance I got. My body is not as good as it used to be.

I have to follow certain rules now to maintain my health: Rest is very important. I think I should limit my daily work-outs to an hour at least unless I have a day off or a chance to really rest afterwards. I should learn how to say No to myself no matter how intense my desire to work-out is. I need to cut my visits with friends in Fort Lauderdale. My health deteriorates faster everytime I go out with them. We stay up the whole night and chances are I need to run the following day. They sleep. I run. It's unfair. Unfortunately, they are so demanding and would not take No for an answer. My solution will be to lie and answer the phone only when I want to. I know, it sounds cruel but, hey, I want friends some of the time, not all the time. I want good health all the time. I'm sure they'd understand. Finally, I should not add more stress to my life. I was thinking of going back to school and when I got bedriden with a cold on a day I was supposed to take LSAT, I deemed that as a sign. God was telling me to chill out. It's time to enjoy life for a bit without that unwanted stress.

Anyway, I feel better now. I will return to regular programming soon.

Since my nose is cleared and I feel lighter, I have started my slow running on a treadmill today in preparation for my long run tomorrow. I am doing this to save my Feb 22 half marathon race in Fort Lauderdale which I could possibly skip due to my recent cold. I have quite learned my lesson now which states, if tired, especially when you're in your 40's, REST. There was also a cold spreading around the hospital which did not spare me. Anyway. I was looking at my posts and the last run I did was Feb 3. Argh, it's more than 10 days already. I hope I still could pull this last half marathon. We'll see and I'll inform you about the results.

This is so far the best day I had since my cold started last Friday. My work since Monday was so heavy I just immediately slipped into coma on my bed after each day. Yesterday I was a lot better but I was still suffering from runny nose and painful sinuses. Today I am still having runny nose but without the sinus problems. The last two days I was dragging my feet but today I had a little bounce and I completed my 8 hour work without feeling miserable. I am almost back to my normal self as I am typing this. The truth about colds is they come abruptly and leave as slowly as they could. I was hoping my cold would vanish in one day but I was asking for miracle especially when I did not take any medication to help me out. I refused to aid my recovery with drugs, just because I wanted to check how capable my natural defenses are. I helped myself with cups of tea, rest, and I refrained from any running or working-out. It goes without saying I am so dying to return to them. My skin itches out of dryness, it wants to sweat soon. I hope tomorrow is a complete recovery, then I should begin a walk and progress to running as days go by. I will cut down on weight lifting for now, because running in am and weights in pm (with a heavy work load in between) is, No Good. I should know that, I feel how my body was screaming for rest but do I listen? Nooo. That's the problem.

I feel a little better now. I've returned back to work yesterday, Monday and still felt a little sluggish. I continued with the green tea, dark chocolate thing, orange, bananas. I refused not to take over the counter meds because they are troublesome to my blood pressure. Most of them raise my BP. I am not saying I will never take any over the counter meds, I usually do when my natural defenses could no longer handle the cold, but so far, I am cool, I think. I just can't wait to go back to the gym and running - it's been four days I haven't done a thing. Work is still very heavy but I am taking it slow. I told the boss that I am not going to ask a patient twice. If the patient says, "Come back later", that's it, later will most likely be the following day. I am doing my tasks slowly now. The only trouble I got was the food -- I don't know if my cold or sluggishness is obvious but man, when I ordered food for lunch in the cafeteria, they filled my plate like they wanted to fatten me to be ready for butchery later. There goes the 'stop when 80 percent full' rule. It's so difficult to follow this rule when your job is so physical like mine. Especially when you are sick too. I just felt eating a lot yesterday.

It's time to read about proper eating. I have the book 'The Abs Diet" which I am hoping to read soon. This will be the blog for now. Hope I can come up with more info in the coming days.

Links from Active.com:

4 Ways to Make Treadmill Work outs Fun
How To Run Your Best in your 40s