Monday, September 5, 2016

Pesteng Ehem

It has been 4 weeks since I did the Cobra Ironman 70.3 race. The after-race week was actually great. I completed the race course tired but not wasted. A few hours of sleep after a race, I was up and about devouring lechon. I felt light and was in good spirits that week, that I actually hit the gym that Saturday for a very short indoor swim-bike-run recovery session. The next day I felt like shit. Monday after that I called in sick for work. The last three weeks were a succession of nasty cold, then phlegmatic cough, and now dry cough.

Since I have always been an advocate of natural healing, I shun medicines the whole ordeal. That has always been my secret to staying relatively sick-free all these decades. As my condition is nothing serious, just highly irritating and annoying, I have not yet sought medical opinion. I get to go to work and even do short swim, bike or run sessions, but this pesteng ehem refuses to die yet.

Some questions and thoughts have been in my mind lately:

Am I still in a state of stress? It has been 4.5 months since I removed the main stressor in my life - a frustrating work environment - by resigning. I have since taken up some very manageable work, which is very far from stressful and has very people-friendly work schedule. I actually had more time for leisure and exercise, and I have a very fulfilling gardening/backyard farming on the side. I think I have made good strides, but it will take some more months before I fully shed the 40-50 pounds of frustration I had from my previous work, and the bad lifestyle habits that crept along with it (e.g. shallow breathing, stress binge-eating, late night sleeping). What accumulated in six years cannot be undone in six months.

May this pesteng ehem finally reached its rightful end, so I can claim back the healthier me of six years ago. Six year ago I was an Ironman [albeit 70.3 only ;]   I miss that man I used to be.  Soon, Rico, soon....

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