Lesson Learned

Lots of good running this month, as the annual Angkor Wat half marathon gets closer. A few nights ago was the annual midnight run. It’s kinda gimmicky, but when else are you going to have a good excuse to wander the streets at that hour on a Saturday night with three or four thousand other people? That afternoon, I mentioned that I was going to run it to a teenager I know. She recommended a certain energy drink as my secret weapon.

I ignored her advice until about 90 minutes before race time, when I was tempted to bail because of serious yawning. But then I thought of my soccer mates who would be waiting for me at the start line by pre-arrangement, so I sucked it up, stopped in at the Seven-Eleven around 11:30, pounded said drink, and…

…surprise!... proceeded to run one of my best times ever. The next day I was still flying high. Briefly I was fooled into thinking that I was invincible and could do whatever I wanted to my body without consequences.

But I am not invincible. Sunday afternoon, I donated blood at the Thai Red Cross in honor of Jip’s upcoming 48th birthday (Thais donate blood to make merit). As I walked out of the center, I wondered if I had been wise to choose that day to give. I was already sleep deprived from the race. Then I was going to have to get up several times in the middle of the night as part of my weekly turn to take care of Jip.

And so what did I do to offset any possible ill effects of not having enough blood in my system? Back to the energy drink.

This turned out to be a bad plan, as you could have foreseen, because even though I sailed through the evening with Jip showing no signs of fatigue (the stuff really works), there was a sort of hangover effect on Monday, which luckily was a day off for us government workers (Columbus), but unluckily fooled me yet again.

This time the foolishness was figuring that as long as I was sleepy, I could go for an afternoon massage. Thai massage is great if you have no toxins stored up in your tissues. Or if you have a normal amount of blood to flush those toxins. But I had two strikes against me, having pounded two energy drinks in two days. By Monday night I was hurtin’ for certain and by Wednesday things were bad enough that the wisest course of action seemed to be staying home all day and basically vegging, which in these parts is known as what goes around comes around.

Lesson learned: ignore teenagers’ advice at all costs.