Training has been an interesting experience. On the 4th of July, I went running before everyone arrived for the BBQ, and it completely drained me of energy. I wasn't sore, nor was my heart beating out of my chest, I just had no energy at all. I've been exhausted for a couple of weeks now. In fact, as I look back, I can see that while my strength is getting better, I'm getting more flexible, and my endurance is improving, my overall energy level is going down since I started, not going up. That seems... off.
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| I mean, I knew I would be tired, but EXHAUSTED? Sheesh. |
While there are a ton of possibilities, I see two in particular that may be the biggest culprits: sleep and water.
1) Since I began running, my sleep has been really iffy - I typically get to bed around 10 and sleep until 6, but I've had so many things going on that I've been more getting to bed at midnight and getting up at 5, or to bed by 10 and up at 3. Now that my kids are with their mom and my family reunion is over, this should begin to settle down, though it hasn't yet and I'm not feeling as exhausted.
2) Water. As I researched, it seems as though someone my age should be drinking close to 105 oz of water/day, and that goes up if you are in a dry climate and up again if you are at a high elevation. I am in a dry, elevated area, so I should probably be drinking close to 120-130 oz/day, and I'm averaging around 60.
I'm trying to drink way more water, we'll see how that goes. It's hard to remember to drink that much during the day - it's 4 of my 32 oz water bottles, and I feel waterlogged when I drink 2.5 or 3. But I'm working on it.
Since I got back from the family reunion this last week, I've been out all but one day. I'm trying to avoid running in the heat of the afternoon, and I began running (not just walking) again for the first time since the 4th, too, but taking it really easy. Until I can figure out what is going on with my energy level, I'm not pushing hard, that's for certain.
Right now, I'm in Move-Forward-As-Much-As-I-Can-Without-Tanking-Again mode. There may be diet contributions, vitamin deficiencies, or any number of other causes, but I'll try to get sleep and water out of the way before I try to nail down anything else.
