Day 13 - bad idea

So after all my big talk yesterday about waking up and getting out of bed with my jumprope in hand, I did the exact opposite this morning. After working-out last night I decided when the alarm went off today that I would try and exercise after work, so I could see which I liked more.

This was a huge mistake. I guess my brain has two routines rattling around in it, one Pre-PCP and the other Post-PCP.

The Post-PCP routine involves getting up at 5 and then internet'ing around for 15 to 20 minutes as I wake up for real. Then it is to the basement for jumpropes and whatever strength exercises Patrick has planned for the day. I head upstairs to eat breakfast, packing my lunch and snacks, take a shower and head off to work. Since the PCP started I have been consistently 5 or 10 minutes late to work, but I'm not really rushing most mornings. It helps that if I ask real nice Emily will iron something for me to wear if I get desperate.

Today, by not getting up at 5, I almost right into the old Pre-PCP routine. Which includes dozing back off until 6:30. With forty-five minutes till I had to leave, I am then ran around like a crazy person trying to my food together and skipping breakfast so I can get to work on-time. The first thing I drank was coffee, which is all I drank until about 9 in the morning. Then, because I didn't pack enough food I go to the deli at lunch and get a gyro or BLT.

Today, thankfully, was not THAT bad. I did get up at 6:30, but managed to cobble together a breakfast of 4 slices of rye bread, a bunch of carrots and cherry tomatoes and a hardboiled egg. I ate this in the car, wrapping the bread around a couple carrots to make it not so dry. Lunch was frozen shrimps on some pasta with more carrots and cherry tomatoes on the side. Emily did me a huge favor boiling the pasta while I showered. I have an apple packed for afternoon snack, but just now realized I did not remember to drink my morning milk. The only good thing is I did manage to get here five minutes early, hence the importance of eliminating that first-thing facebook.

The most striking effect was how grumpy I was. There could be a number of factors: annoyance at myself for having to rush, being hungry, being dehydrated, no endorphin kick from exercise and knowing I was going to have to exercise after work when I'm burned out. Chances are these are all factors on my mood, each building on the other. However, as my 'metrics professor would say, each of these variables is multicollinear to the other because they share a single root z-variable: not getting up and getting the work out done.

So, lesson learned, this is the first time in 12 days I did not get up and exercise, which I can assure you is a PR, and I didn't react well. I'll have to remember this next time the snooze button looks so inviting and I want to change the routine.