WHEN YOUR BODY DOESN'T LIKE WHAT YOU DO

  When I was in the Army, especially the last ten years or so, I could almost always run off of 4-6 hours of sleep a night.  I regularly did physical training, usually on my own or in a small group.  I could take a 10-15 minute power nap in a chair during lunch if I had a particular rough day.  But retired life has shown me that I cannot do that anymore. 

  I have been trying to keep up my old set of waking hours with my current job, but I run into an issue with sleep: it gets interrupted part way through, so that sets everything else I have planned for the day off schedule. 

  Now I work at a university and I see that as a chance to make an impact in the next generation’s lives.  Granted, my job is not teaching, but usually I am surrounded by college students and I get to ask them what they studying, what they plan to do after college, and how they will either improve themselves or make the world better.  However, working there means that I had to take the afternoon to evening shift, not the normal 9-5 day shift. That means I get home around 12:30 AM and cannot fall asleep until between 1 and 2 in the morning, and the only time I get to see my youngest is in the morning when she gets ready for school.  So I get up at 6 AM to help her.  Sometimes, I take her out to the bus while other times my wife will. But once my daughter leaves, I head back to bed… with the full intention of getting up an hour or two later to go run. 

  That doesn’t happen.

  Lately, or rather the past two months have shown me that my body craves sleep more than anything. I have slept through alarm clocks, notifications from my Alexa Echo Dot, my phone blaring music and messages, but unfortunately, not from robo-telemarketers.  This “need” for sleep has reduced my speed and is bringing me back to cardio levels from when I threw out my shoulder and couldn’t catch my breath after the second mile. 

  On the positive note, though, my work does involve me moving about and with summer approaching, my daughter will be on summer vacation in a month.  Once that happens, I should be able to get back into working on improving my speed and endurance more.  In the meantime, I need to focus on maintaining what I have and definitely watching what I eat.