For the past while I have been feeling exhausted all the time. I’ve been assuming it is because I have a newer job and now have to commute for longer than I used to. I have also over-scheduled myself in other respects. Free time is something that happens to other people.
But I am now wondering if there is something else at work.
I have had odd dining habits for a long time. I say I eat when I’m hungry, but I think I may have just broken my hunger signals. This has led me to making dinner after eight and eating by nine. Maybe I’m just running our of fuel.
This unhappy state of affairs happens when I come home tired. My first instinct is not to feed myself, but to relax for awhile. I then proceed to waste far too much time browsing internet sites I’m not that interested in. Eventually, hunger strikes and I force myself to get food in my system. By then it is too late. Any energy I get from eating will not hit my system until too late. So I spend every evening tired and probably in some weird feedback loop that is keeping me tired.
I’m going to try and force myself to eat earlier now.

Last week I finished the Sinister 7. Barely. It was one of the toughest races I’ve done. And I finished 16 minutes before the final cutoff.
The more I think about it, the scarier it becomes. Every little choice those days had an effect that could have easily put me over. Just the act of stopping for the bathroom could have prevented a finish.
And I wanted to fail. There were many times in the last three legs where I was tempted to slow down. If I did, then I could miss a cutoff and just stop. What kept me competing was that if I did that, I would be throwing away all the hell I had been through already. The heat of leg three. The tiredness of leg four. The darkness of led five. The long slog of leg six.
But, I buttoned down on leg six and forced myself to keep going. And I looked terrible after finishing leg 5; my sister didn’t think I would make it for the next cutoff. I pushed myself and I finished leg 6 in exactly the time I predicted when I had started. Part of me wishes I had taken it a bit slower; I looked up at one point, in the middle of the night in the middle of the wilderness and I saw all the stars. I didn’t stop to admire them. I had to keep going.
None of my friends finished. That’s what makes victory so much sweeter. They either had injuries that forced them to drop down to running with a team, or they slowed down and failed to make cut offs. And I kept injuring myself. For the first three legs, I was rolling my ankle far too many times. I have a weak ankle from an ancient injury, so rolling happens easily. But because it is so weak, I can also use it again after thirty seconds. It never did feel perfect again, and I was protective of it, which probably slowed me down.
But, I was the last place finisher. This netted me the Red Lantern award; three bottles of wine.
I am now an award winning runner.

Happy Canada Day.
Normally I would celebrate by going out to the pancake breakfast at the legislature. Or even doing the Canada Day Road Race (which was an option before ultras started getting scheduled at around the same time.) Then I would have the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. Maybe even take in the fireworks tonight.
However, I have a number of chores I need to do to get ready for the aforementioned ultra. The best way, I can see, to give myself time to do that is to instead go into work today. That will give me the time I need to get things done.
I can sense your confusion. But my logic is sound. I have found when I have a full day of nothing, I get nothing done. No pressures means no accomplishments. If I have only an evening of time available, I can get a lot more done. Stress is my friend. Without it, I can get distracted easily. So, I will go to work to give myself more time.
Though, I would really like to have had those pancakes.