I’m a week removed from the Leona Divide 50K and much like the race itself, recovery has been slow. On one hand I’ve been consciously resting, but there’s an element of forced rest in there as well.
It took a few days for my quads to finally feel normal again, but my right ankle has been a different story.
For the most part, if I don’t turn my right foot inwards, it’s fine. But when I do, I’m quickly reminded some ligaments are slightly stretched. Until I absolutely don’t feel any remnants of rolling it, I’m going to keep my miles low and continue working on the strengthening and stretching.
So while I’m consciously telling myself I don’t need to rush back to anything, my right foot is basically telling me, “Hold up girl! You ain’t getting back out on the trails just yet.”
Saturday morning was my first go at running this week and I managed to complete 4 miles without any trouble. It’s only if I turn the foot inward. Normally after a 50K, I’ve bounced back to running within 3 or 4 days, but physically, I’ve been fairly tired this week. While it might be contributed to the race itself, there is one other, more prominent reason for why this is.
I cut out caffeine.
Gasp!
Since Monday, I’ve been on decaf coffee and even though I don’t actually drink a ton of caffeinated coffee throughout the day, I’m pretty sensitive to its effects and suffer intense withdrawal symptoms whenever I quickly go without.
A little over a week ago (maybe even closer to 2 weeks), I started to wean off the caffeine and include more decaf to lessen the blow. For me, this needs to be a gradual change because too much decaf right off the bat and my body hits at least DEFCON 2, and it did for a bit, so I caved and upped the caffeine.
Over the weekend, with the race and all, I had quite a bit of caffeine intake. When Monday rolled around, I was on straight up decaf (I was out of caffeinated coffee) and my body knew it immediately. I was tired.
But then again, I was still tired from the race itself, so I was going to be tired either way.
However, on Tuesday my body was in full-blown withdrawal mode – intense headache, exhaustion, nausea, body aches. Basically I felt like I had the flu. And I wish I was being dramatic and exaggerating, but alas I’m not.
So I surrendered to what was, but this time, I didn’t cave in. Instead, I rode out the storm by resting and drinking a boatload of water.
Thankfully each day has been a little better than the last, with Friday being the first day this week where I didn’t even have a headache. Perhaps a sign of better days to come!
I suppose if I felt like I got the flu every time I cut out caffeinated coffee, why would I ever want to go back to drinking it? To be honest, I actually like decaf coffee. If it tastes good, I’ll drink it regardless if it’s decaf or not.
However, switching over to decaf wasn’t the destination. It was just one more step to what’s next. And that is…quitting coffee altogether.
Gasp!!!
For this coffee-loving gal, I am in fact, going completely off coffee – decaf or otherwise – for the entire month of May.
Did you think I’d say forever? Ha! Actually, you never know. I could end up extending this coffee vacation to throughout June as well, but let me get through the first day without it first and then the second, and so on, and so on.
May is also the month where I’ve decided to go off the grid…the social media grid, that is. No Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook for the entire month of May. This I find is a bit harder concept to accept, and yet, I feel a deep urging within me to do it.
Way back in the day – something like 3 or 4 years ago – I used to give myself a challenge to do during a month. One month, my challenge was to read 3 or 4 books. I failed. I think another month I gave up attempted to give up coffee. I failed at that one too. In fact, pretty sure I failed at all of them and I don’t even remember what other challenges I had.
Lately, there’s been a nudging from different avenues to embark on something completely out of my comfort zone.
And going completely off social media, is something I anticipate will be very challenging task for me. There is a level of trepidation involved, and that’s a sign for me that it’s something I need to do.
While I won’t be deactivating any accounts, come May 1st, I will not be actively on there. Note to self: write down passwords.
But why? You might ask. It’s because I might forget my passwords. Just kidding! I’ll actually address the “whys” in a future post.
This means I am going to continue to write about this experience, and about running and so forth, and those will be posted to Twitter and Facebook since I don’t need to go on those sites to do so, but probably not on Instagram since I know the moment I open that app, it’s as if I’m eating Pringles, I can’t just stop at one and before I know it, ooh look I just ate the entire can scrolled through photos for 2 hours! Is that even possible? Oh you’d be surprised.
This isn’t like I’ll be holed up in some cave somewhere, even though it might feel like it at times and without coffee to boot, but people will still be able to find me, if they need me. There is texting, calling, or emailing and any posted comments on this blog since I won’t be reading any on Twitter or Facebook.
To be honest, I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how I will feel about cutting off social media for a whole 31 days. But I will say I am a bit nervous or anxious about this. Maybe because I feel like I’m going to be completely cutoff from the world. FOMO y’all! But I managed to survive life without social media before and I can do it again. Right? I shall see at least and I’ll be writing all about it. Starting on May 1st!
Thanks for reading!