October 06, 2003 - 12:09 AM

Don't Work Out Drunk!

Guess who's back at work? That's ri...hey hey, no, not you. ME! Me is back at work.

"We don't know" is still pending (perhaps later this week), but "here's something else" popped up yesterday for today. But man, "something else" has really turned into a whack little session. I've been here at work since 4 PM, and we've done jack squat. Lots of mix ups, false starts, miscommunications, all leading to me and the engineer sitting around twiddling our thumbs. But I'm getting paid. Hee.

Yesterday, I went out with Matt to Largo to see Lisa Germano. If you don't know her music, it's quirky, self-deprecating, depressing, sad sack, carnival pop. Distressingly heart-breaking, yet all with a smile. Be very careful when you listen, lest you accidently suffocate yourself with licorice cotton candy.

Which is all to say that I like her, but too much in one sitting can get a bit unnerving. Still, she was charming and the performance was good.

I had some scotch and a beer at the show, then some Taco Bell afterwards, which I took home. My tummy needed some settling down, so I watched telebishun, some old videotapes (including the season one finale of West Wing which was such a far cry from the past couple of seasons in terms of the spectacular/craptacular ratio), fooled around on the guitar with some Melissa Ferrick songs for which I'd found tabulatures online. This time was wasted so that I could gather my bodily functions into a functioning whole for with which then I could thus go workout at the gym.

I really should've just gone to sleep.

Usually, my workout consists of a warmup run on the treadmill for 4 minutes at a 7:30 minute/mile pace, followed by a 1 minute warmdown walk. This time, inspired by talk from my brother of his gearing up for a 5 mile run with Jen and Jen's brother and sister for Thanksgiving, as well as Matt's having just run a 10 k race in Santa Monica that morning, I decided to push myself. Now, I HATE running long distances. I've always been more of a sprinter, what with the short bursts of balls-of-the-feet speed necessary in baseball, volleyball, tennis, and, well, sprinting. The longest distance I ran in high-school track was the 800 (twice around the track) which sucked royally; I was so happy to only have to do it 4 times before I switched to other events (although one of the ones I ended up with was the 300 hurdles which was just as much a pain in the ass because it was almost a 400 yard sprint, with the added bonus of intermittent vertical obstacles requiring these stupid long strides that made for an uncomfortable goofy cross between the toe-sprint and the heel-toe run).

Anyways, I decided to try running at a faster speed at the gym, and went with a 6 minute/mile pace. This I kept up for almost 2 minutes before I started slipping back on the treads, so I slowed down to 6:45/mile for thirty seconds, then 7:40/mile for a minute before warming down with my usual walk.

I hadn't built up as much of a sweat as I usually do at my normal pace, but I had more difficulty getting my breathing down. I then went on with my routine of leg stretches, followed by core exercises, where I work on holding certain positions that strengthen my mid-section (lumbar, abs, love handles), then some crunches. Usually, my breathing gets under control during this section while the sweat starts to pour; this time, while the sweat did come, the breathing got more labored. My lungs started burning, as if I'd just sprinted the 800.

A small break to relax and take deep breaths helped a little, as did drinking lots of water. I then started in on my weight workout for the day (what am I talking about,"day"? It was 5 in the morning. Oh, and it was chest day), but I could only go through 15 minutes of lifting before I felt too weak and out of breath to continue. I prefer to get at least 45 minutes of weight training in, so this didn't make me happy. But I had to obey my body. And at that point my body was telling me to feed it some sugar and lie down OR ELSE. I staggered to the car and trembled all the way home. When I got in my apartment, I went straight for the fridge and chugged some juice, got out the coffee ice cream and curled up on the floor with more old West Wing. An hour later, as the sugar kicked in, I was able to sit up without wanting to dry heave, took a shower, and went to sleep.

Moral? Don't drink and eat Taco Hell before going to work out.

Jeezum Crow. Jeepers Creepers. Jiminy Christmas. Cripes. Criminy. I've been thinking about all the different sanitized variations on "jesus christ as an exclamation" out there. Why? Because the mind tends to wander when there's nothing to do. For two weeks.

Now Listening To : Volume One of a mix I made for Tony.
Random Thought : I also made a mix for Matt and one for Yels. Anyone else want one?

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