Fatigue

Someone asked me this morning how I was. Normally, I pretty much always say, "Okay thanks, how are you?" Today though I responded, "I am exhausted."

And I am. It just hit me.

It makes sense, I basically I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since last Wednesday. That's a solid week without good sleep for those of you who can't do math.

Last Thursday-Satruday night I was doing Reach the Beach. Total blast, but not a lot of sleep.

Middle of the night. And we are running..... not sleeping.

Monday morning I had a very early flight, so I was up at 2:45 to run. I landed in California at noon and powered through meetings until 7 at night. Yeah that was a long ass day.

Tuesday-Thursday I was in California. I was up at 4:45 am every morning to hit the gym and then busy with work stuff until 7 or 8 at night. Monday and Tuesday night I actually got into bed by a decent hour but sleep just wasn't happening. The hotel was loud and the time difference was messing me up.

Thursday night I was supposed to take a red eye to Newark, have a 3 hour layer at 5 am, and then take the 9:00 am shuttle to Portland, getting home at 10:00 am this morning. That would have sucked. Luckily I got to take an earlier flight home. Still, I did get to sleep until about 2 this morning. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to haul myself out of bed and go to my favorite step class.

It was there that the exhaustion hit me. Although normally I need a solid 8-9 hours of sleep, I actually felt pretty darn good all week. Today, not so much. I felt like I was wading through mud trying to get my feet up on the step. I couldn't focus on the choreography and I messed up constantly.

I shouldn't have gone. But it's a fine line. A lot of times scrimping a little on sleep to fit in exercise in the morning makes me feel so much better. It energizes me for the entire day. Today though, I clearly needed the sleep.

How much sleep do you need? How can you tell if you are better off sleeping or getting up to get in a workout?