Right now my head is about to explode, and I have no idea why. Around 9pm I felt tired and thought, "I know, I will be sensible and have an early night". And that's about where it started to go wrong.
Breaking the habit of leaving it til I am ready to crash, I decided it would be better to go to bed relaxed rather than exhausted. Apparently that is NOT what my brain wanted. After almost 2 hours of trying to get to sleep, I have taken the advice of the experts and decided not to try and force it, and instead be active for a bit and wait to feel tired again.
Speaking of being active, that is probably part of the problem, having NOT been my usual active self this week, I am left with an excess of energy daily. Driving me mad right now, but until I can shake these throat sores, I am trying to save energy and give myself a chance to heal.
Again that leads on to the next reason I am struggling to sleep recently, and that is my throat. With an infection going on, swallowing is proving pretty hard and painful, so I am a bit dehydrated. Add to that the fact that each time I fall asleep my throat dries out and I wake in severe discomfort, and it all starts to become self explanatory.
So as I lay there trying to sleep, every thought in the world races through my mind, some I can shake off, others dwell. Eating away at me, spiralling down down down into the depths of my mind. Will I be able to run the LLHM on Sunday? What if my fitness starts to suffer ruining my plans for the summer. Are things going to be worse before they get better. How much more discomfort can I take before I scream and go mad.... Is that a tooth ache I can feel coming on?
So for the sake of trying to go to bed an hour or so early tonight, I am left sitting here gone 11pm, watching Dr Who, hoping the thoughts subside, the tiredness returns and I can get to sleep at some point, even if it is in the wee small hours.
Sometimes you are your own worst enemy... This is one of those times. The only blessing is that this is discomfort driven, and not the downward spirals I am more familiar with, where these spells would become more and more frequent.