A sick start to the week

After taking the day off Thursday and then spending Friday working from bed, you would think that I would be better. In fact, on Friday I felt good enough to do a bit of yoga at night. I didn’t really work up a crazy sweat like I do with regular Insanity, but I did get a light sheen that felt great – like I was sweating the toxins right out of me. I stayed in on Friday night, since I needed to be up at 6am on Saturday, but didn’t get much sleep due to all my stressing. Work, marathons, friends, diet… you name it, and it’s stressful lately. I tried everything I could think of to relax and take my mind off things, knowing that it would all look a lot better in the morning, but had no luck. I finally got to bed around 1am, but spent so much time tossing and turning that it really wasn’t even a solid 4 hours of sleep. When I woke up at 5:30am, still stressed, I decided there wasn’t much point in tossing and turning for another 30 minutes until my alarm, so I decided I might fare better by getting the endorphins pumping with another light workout.

After a sweaty workout and a quick shower to rinse off, I actually felt pretty good – maybe I had been able to sweat the sickness out of me? I headed for the Megabus stop downtown, where I was meeting my friend Meg to head up to Albany for the weekend. Our friend Topher was starring in a production of “Crazy for You”, so it was a nice chance for us to head up to my hometown and catch some weekend theater.

When we got on the bus, I was pleasantly surprised to find it nearly empty… and even more pleasantly surprised to find one of my old high school friends on board! I introduced Matt to Meg, and we spent an hour catching up and reminiscing about the shenanigans we used to get up to growing up as kids in a small town (um, Saturday night adventures to the 24 hour Walmart? Yes, we were that cool). While I had initially planned to catch up on sleep for the 2.5 hour trip, this was a lot more fun, and may have been just what my spirits needed.

Arriving in Albany, my mom arrived at the train station to pick us up, and we headed home for some fresh-baked cranberry orange scones. So delicious! Despite the fact that we had brunch plans at noon, I gorged myself on three of the delicious treats (I later figured out that they were about 150 calories each, so not as horrible as I first thought). Then, it was off to Troy to meet Topher, his mom, and his other friend Cathy for brunch before the show.

I drank a ton of coffee at brunch, and it seemed to do me well – by the time the (fabulous) show ended, I was still raring to go. We had plans to see another show that evening, but were going to make a last-minute call based on how I felt… and I felt awesome! We stopped at a local brewery, Brown’s, for dinner beforehand, and I even felt well enough to try one (just one) beer, the signature Brown ale. It was okay, but nowhere near as good as their Smokehouse Porter that I’ve had in the past. I was surprised, though, to discover that the pint I had didn’t give me any kind of buzz – apparently those scones and my brunch sandwich were sitting heavier than I thought 🙂

The second show was a community theater production that was a much different scale than “Crazy for You,” but I was just thrilled to get to see the show itself. “Side Show” has long been one of my favorite Broadway CDs, due to the incredible score and beautiful orchestrations, but I had never seen it performed before. This was a group of local actors, so the ensemble wasn’t anywhere near as polished as the “Crazy for You” group (who were all professionals brought in from New York), but it was still thrilling to get to see the CD I had listened to so many times come to life. It was also really neat to get to see so many old friends from the Albany theater scene, both onstage and in the audience. Most of them knew about my marathon success and congratulated me, and it was really weird to feel how much I’ve changed in the last 8 years or so. It definitely made me nostalgic for the theater – I hope that someday I can live in a suburb with a vibrant community theater scene, and have a job that allows me to rehearse and perform as a hobby. I missed it!

After the show, I was now wiped out, but figured that was par for the course given the 18 hour day. Still, I couldn’t resist one more stop: at Stewart’s (a convenience store chain) for some of their ice cream. Seriously, if any of you are ever in upstate New York and happen to see a Stewart’s around, make sure you stop for a cone. They have an awesome variety of flavors, and it’s all really creamy and delicious – I still haven’t found any ice cream quite like it. After my caramel praline cone, I went to bed content – what a great day!

Unfortunately, I woke up in the morning stressed as ever: I was back to being congested, and with an even worse sore throat than before. The bus ride back to New York passed quickly, despite my feeling that the bus was too hot, but when I got back to my apartment and still felt hot, I decided it was time to take my temperature. 100.4! Ugh. I went into a panicked frenzy – how could I be even sicker than a week ago, when I had been resting and trying so hard to get well? I spent a while agonizing over whether it would be better for me to cancel my trip to Texas and stay home instead, but ultimately decided to go – I’d be a lot less productive if I stayed home and had to conference call the team for every little thing. However, I decided that since I was going, a few concessions would have to be made:
1. Early bedtime. No exceptions.
2. No team dinners. No exceptions.
3. No drinking. REALLY no exceptions.

All three of those are things that are really tough to do in practice, because they make me look bad, but I figure it’s better to go down to work, explain that I’m still under the weather, and get those exceptions made, than not to go at all. I just hope I’m able to carry it out! I have the Vermont City Marathon next weekend, and in addition to pacing, I’m going to be speaking at the expo, so I really need to be in tip top form. Hopefully I can get to that point by Saturday!

Happy Monday, everyone.