Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Unexplained Exhaustion

I cut my lawn barefoot last night, after dinner, after going to my son's track meet barefoot, after driving him to soccer practice. I did not run yesterday, barefoot or otherwise. Yet, after mowing, after picking up my son from soccer practice, I was exhausted. It was about 8:30 PM. I laid down on my bed and conked-out. I woke up about 2 AM, went to the bathroom, removed my running shorts, and slept until almost 7 AM.

I was exhausted last week too. I missed a few days of running. I took some naps. I ran almost 12 on Saturday, but in general, my running mileage has been low. I am about 40 miles behind the yearly total that I was at at this point last year. I do not know exactly what is up. All kids of scenarios are in my head, including mono, Lyme disease, anemia, clinical depression, thyroid problems and cancer. Even after that long sleep last night, I am still feeling a little draggy. My muscles feel a bit weak. I had some diarrhea yesterday. Colleagues have noticed that my mood is bit down, and that I look tired.

I want to believe that I have just been sleep-deprived for too long a period of time. It is hard for me to really come to terms with this. Perhaps sleep deprivation is the best explanation. I think I have gotten an average of about 6 hours of sleep per night for a couple of months now. I should do some research on the effects of this kind of sleep deprivation. Maybe I should go to a doctor?

More to come.

2 comments:

Yanni Papastavrou said...

Hi Gene,
Hope by now you have recovered from your exhaustion, whatever it was. Perhaps it was a virus of some sort? I have a theory that when very fit people get a virus, instead of feeling the full brunt of the symptoms such as a fever and severe aches and pains, just get exhausted instead. Just an idea...
Yanni.

Thinnmann said...

Yes - I am all good now~!
Thanks!