23 - 24/03/24: Taking today as a hard reset

Just a quick journal-type entry to get some thoughts and feels out

And to shake some rust off~

This morning I had my mind set to get more trail running in at Griffith Park. I prepped my vest with enough hydration and nutrition for ~16 to 18 miles. I had my duffel packed with a post-run shake and clothes to change into after a yoga sesh and some steam room time at the gym. Everything planned and prepped, I paused at the front door..

and then retreated back into my apartment.

I’m not running today.

At that moment I came to the realization that though my mind set on it, my soul—my inner jelly—wasn’t. My planning for today’s long run truthfully was a reach. It was hopeful, aspirational. It was ignorant to all the circumstances leading up.

I’m beat. And it’s not hard to figure why. The past two weeks have consisted of 10-hour workdays that demanded me to be “on” for more and longer than I’m used to. (My normal days are 9 hours, and with those I already find little margin.) Earlier days, tight deadlines and pop-up projects with one-day turnarounds bound me to my office chair. I also terminated an employee for the first time. That SUCKED.

Add in last weekend’s 10pm drives to and from Vegas with a packed itinerary and Saturday night bender, and it’s the perfect recipe for.. well, not running. 

All of this has left me feeling thin. Each day brought more stress and fatigue without much time or space to recover, much less catch up. When I fall behind, my reflex is to want to compensate to catch up—to WILL it—but I’m finding that tends to lead to a spiral deeper, downward. 

What that looks like is me being more and more tired and also less kind, less patient, less me. The Me this morning wanted to carry on with today’s run as if there hadn’t been this two-week history preceding it. The Me this morning was confused!

What a paradox, that the thing I seek for fun and leisure and meaning and to most fully feel ALIVE is one that can also conjure immense stress and guilt and tiredness. Some evenings after those 10-hr workdays, it felt like the only thing that could save my sanity was a sunset trail run. I’d do the run, and it formed to be exactly what I needed. The most beautiful scenery and sunset would seemingly wash away the stresses of the day. But pursuing it also perpetuated the snowball of fatigue that had been building. And then I’d still feel that I wasn’t running enough or that I was falling behind.

So this morning I just had that internal gut punch that I needed to stop and reset. That was uncomfortable. Similar to the way it’s always uncomfortable when your computer forces a restart for a software update. All those open tabs and applications! Sometimes they auto-recover, but sometimes they don’t. But with a blank slate, you just have to trust that whatever was important will return/manifest/self-actualize? Something like that. 

Anyway, I took today to rest and scrawl a few pages into my journal. My tendency to tread forward with whatever muck that accumulated was finally met with enough friction to bring me to a stop. Ugh there’s also just other things I want to continue to do. Like this blog! My backlog’s building up! It was rly defeating these past two weeks to feel like I could only get my running in and then not even really succeeding with that. 

This upcoming week I’ll need to set better boundaries with work and build my breaks in rather than just hoping for one to come along. Along with that, I’ll be more firm with giving myself the self-care and mindfulness time I need rather than hoping to work with whatever’s left at the end of the day, time- and energy-wise. 

I’ll leave it at that for now. Oh and lastly I’ll just affirm that I’m doing okay, none of this has been toooo bad. I’m just tired, but the work thing should be temporary. If not, I’ll make it so. 

Til next time! -Nico