The Intellectual Wilderness

I woke up this morning feeling like poo, but knowing that I had it in me to get on with things. That made me happy, but I do hate waking up feeling anything less than energetic. The rain this morning dampened my enthusiasm a little further. A run can cure that, thought, so that’s what I went out to do — despite the rain.

Trying to make myself feel like running…
I had taken a day and a half off to rest after over-working myself to a pretty severe degree on Monday. My run time today was very strange: 21:14. That is exactly the same run time I turned in on Day 24, the day after I broke myself off. Of course, today felt entirely different. Whereas it was an effort just to finish two days ago, today it was an effort to restrain myself and not run too fast. I can still feel the effects of overtraining, but they are not as pronounced. My shin splints are also going away… so yay!

I didn’t feel comfortable going to lift weights today. I didn’t feel like avoiding the gym, I just did not feel as steady as I should to do the lifts I wanted to do. I needed to make up my missed weight workouts, after all, and that means (by my thinking) doing more large movements with heavy weight. The best thing I have found to do on make-up days are huge movements like dead-lifts, cleans, flat bench, etc. but all of those are a little scary to do alone on a day where I feel well-rested and energetic. I do not want to go in there feeling a little tired and have no spotter as I try some of those. So I just opted out. This is one of the primary reasons I hate working out alone… there is no one to back me up who I feel comfortable with and I am not confident pushing myself like I should without anyone else around.

When I went to the other gym today to train, I found a pleasant surprise: Leandro was there and ready to roll!

Nobody was around yet so I got him all to myself. He asked me if there was anything specific I wanted to go over, and of course having the opportunity to pick his brain on half guard sounded like great fun…

Running drills on a half-guard pass Leandro suggested to me

Then the new guys showed up and we had a class…

New guys have to discover their danger zones the hard way

After that I needed to change and do some boxing. Farrap was my trainer today and told me I needed to take things a little slower and focus on movement with him, not on knocking the crap out of a heavy bag and wearing myself out. I think Farrap underestimates himself and does not realize that doing movement and pad drills with him wears me out, maybe more than a heavy bag does.

Well deserved chicken nuggets…

By the end of things I had rolled for two hours, but most of it in a very light, fluid way with Leandro and boxed a decent 8-round workout (2 rounds shadow, 1 round heavy bag, 1 round movement, 2 rounds heavy mitts, 2 rounds focus mitts). I was extremely hungry, but felt otherwise very good and was highly satisfied with what I had accomplished today.

I went to bed at an early-ish hour last night to try and get ahead of my fatigue, but it just wouldn’t take. Despite feeling tired all day I had trouble falling asleep last night and did not sleep soundly. Not what I expected, but then again I felt uncomfortable all over because most of my body felt either tired or slightly painful.

I woke up with some pretty awesome bed-head and wasn’t motivated to do much about that. I wasn’t motivated to do much of anything accept for eat more. I wasn’t ravenous like yesterday, but I still had a pretty good appetite.

My nappy face

Today was not a run day so the morning was nice and relaxing. I thought I could spend some time feeling myself out and at least get in for a light leg workout and boxing, but it just wasn’t going to happen today. I was too tired and my legs were already too strained feeling to be trying to kick anything. So… another rest day. I feel like I’m taking a lot of these, but comparing them with my output on the work days, things are coming out about right. A smoother pace feels better, though.

My new, other past-time: Assembling McDonald’s toys.

I noticed something interesting today. I looked visibly thinner in the mirror this morning than I did a week ago. The fat around my tummy is going away at an almost alarming rate, making me wonder if this diet, despite seeming so heavy, is actually a lot lighter than what I normally eat. I have done this level of work before, it is not so unusual for me… but I usually gain weight, not lose it. Body fat usually does go away, but as things stand right now I think I am actually lose weight overall and fat in particular.

That just makes me wonder what my normal diet calorie count actually is. One good thing about McDonald’s is that it is very easy to check how much you are eating of what if you compare your receipts with the table they publish. When I cook at home I usually make things from scratch so I have no clue how much of what is in which thing. Interesting consequence.

I had had a great time on Day 23, but this morning I could tell from the bruises on my legs and feel from my slightly higher-than-usual resting heart rate that I was a lot more worn out than I had thought. But today was another work-out day so there is no avoiding getting up to go run. At least a run is a safe way to discover whether I need to take a rest day or if I can push through without negative results (or an injury).

This is my tired face

I ran my regular route in 21:14, which was about a minute slower than yesterday, but I just didn’t have anything else in me. 20+ minute 2.5 mile runs are not fast by any standard, but even 21:14 was difficult today. It was more of a survival run than a training experience. I tried everything: running slow, running fast, big steps, small steps, smooth, choppy, anything I could think of… and it all just sucked. I was simply too tired. I could feel when I got back home that I hadn’t accomplished anything other than confirming that I had overdone things last night.

My legs hurt, my chest felt hollow and things just weren’t working right. After the run I spent a nice, long cool-down period and stretched out a lot and got ready to go eat.

I decided that the wisest thing to do was to cancel the rest of my training for the day because it just wouldn’t do to crush myself under a barbell or damage my legs or shoulders boxing. With only one week remaining in the experiment an injury would risk the remainder and that just doesn’t make sense.  Regardless what I do today, my body will have to put its full energy into rebuilding and restoring itself and that will require food, all of which will come from McDonald’s, so this should still give me a clear picture of whether or not my body is adapting to this diet or not.

Recovery food?

Of course, at this point I don’t really feel any different than I did when I started and my blood work was great at the mid-point test, so I don’t think there’s much to worry about. The big change was that last night I met a BJJ guy who was better than me and a ton of fun to roll with and I wasted myself doing boxing and that all at once.

And on the point of diet… I was starving… all day. I could get to feeling full, but I always felt hungry again right afterwards. It was sort of a miserable feeling because I’m tired of eating the same food every day and going all the way to McDonald’s every time I get hungry is beginning to be a pain in the ass.

Bleh! Overtraining sucks and feeling worn out to this degree is not a very fun thing. I need to curb my enthusiasm a little if I plan on double-work at the gym. It changes a three-a-day schedule into a four-a-day schedule to roll and box on the same day. Without pacing the entire day a certain way and putting a lot more technique work into the routine (as opposed to going full-force on pads and on thr ground so often) there is no way I could keep up with a schedule like yesterdays with any regularity.