Work Stress

Isn't it unfortunate when multiple intense times in your life coincide? 

Right now, I'm getting deep into marathon training.  My mileage is climbing and long runs are officially getting long.  And I feel it all over.  I'm exhausted with dark circles under my eyes, and I'm frequently fairly sore -- this week, it has been primarily the outside of my butt and upper hips from 120 curtsey lunges, yes, 120, at boot camp on Monday. 

The obvious solution?  More sleep!

But that's not an option.  I am certainly able to drop things from my calendar and go to bed early, early, early, but I can't make myself sleep.

I rarely have trouble falling asleep, and that's not the issue right now.  The issue right now is dreams.  Specifically, dreams about work that wake me up and stress me out in the middle of the night. 

I have a total of six very intense weeks per year at my job.  2 external audits per year, and 4 quarterly conference calls.  Well, this week is one of those 4 quarterly calls.  And less than a month ago was an external audit.  Things will cool down hopefully after this week (we also hired a new attorney for our group, so many of the extra cases I picked up in April when we lost 2 attorneys have now been taken off my case load).  We shouldn't have our next call until mid-October, and our next audit won't be until November. 

But that is no comfort now.  I'm trying all kinds of things to get around this.  The only thing that seems to help is to keep paper and pen by my bed, so I can write down whatever particularly stressful and important thing has woken me up and been added to my "to do" list for the next day.  But even that's not enough.  I'm laying awake thinking about work, and then just as I doze back off, it's 4:40 and the alarm is going off to work out again. 

Monday night of this week, it was a voicemail message that I knew I needed to return and I was dreading.  I did it yesterday, but I had to watch some fairly disturbing video footage yesterday for another case, and unfortunately, as I knew it would take a few hours, I didn't have time to start it in the morning or during the day.  Instead, since I'm pulling very long hours at work this week, I started watching around 5.  Which meant I wasn't done until 8:00 or so.  I had hubby pick me up, we grabbed Chipotle on the way home (oh yeah, with all these miles, I am hungry enough to eat a house right now, seriously, I was telling my husband that I felt like I might be part meerkat and start munching on the drywall in my office), I scarfed it down and went straight to bed.  And sure enough, 1:10 a.m., I'm having images straight from this video.  I get back to sleep and then wake up less than 2 hours later thinking about emails I need to send and things I need to do based on that video. 

Aye, aye, aye!  Just a few more days, just a few more days.  Then the work stress will hopefully abate and I'll be able to get the sleep I need to support the miles I'm running.