A Little Better

The second day of my no caffeine challenge went a little bit better than my first. No migraine, thank goodness, although I did have a headache throughout most of the afternoon and early evening. It wasn't nearly as bad as the day previous, but it still felt like there was something on the inside of my head trying to push its way out through my forehead.

I did take a nap when I got home from work, just to try to clear my headache out, but it was stubbornly going to stay with me so I forced myself to go out for a run, hoping that if I got some exercise I'd maybe get enough blood flowing through my head to loosen things up. It didn't work out exactly as planned, however.

The first 3/4 of a mile of my run was pretty terrible. I kept it to a moderate pace because the added blood flow made my headache a lot sharper and throbbing. Fortunately after the first 3/4 of a mile it started to subside. With its subsiding also came a loss of energy and some hefty calf cramps.

With no need to use coffee and soda as caffeine ingestion methods, I don't find myself drinking nearly as many fluids throughout the day, which I'm sure led to the cramping of my calves. In my 3 mile run I had to stop 3 different times to stretch out my calves. It was ridiculous, but at least my headache was gone.

Upon returning home, I took a shower, ordered some Papa Murphys, and sat down to watch some Wonder Showzen and play some College Hoops '06 on the 360 with Karl. The evening was pretty enjoyable and the caffeine withdrawal effects weren't very noticeable. The only thing that was present was a continual feeling of not being as awake as usual.

My usual bed time is around 11 or 12 so it was weird feeling ready to go to sleep at about 9:30. I pushed on for a bit doing some reading and once 10 rolled around I found that I was just awake enough to carry on to 11, but after that my eyelids were as heavy as anvils and it was time to hit the hay.

This morning I awoke feeling a little less tired than yesterday, but still groggy. The remnants of a headache were slightly there (and are still slightly present), but it wasn't terrible. I can only hope that it won't get worse as the afternoon goes on as it did the past two days. Thankfully I have a remedy for it in going for a run, even if it does suck pretty hard for the first part of the run. So when am I going to start feeling fully normal?