When is the 30 Day Shred NOT a 30 Day Shred?

When you get sick as a dog on day 5 or 6 of the shredding.

Last Wednesday I woke up with congestion and a bit of a sore throat. Having relocated last summer from one side of the country to another, and realizing that this particular congestion and sore throat had been subtly making their way to the "you can no longer ignore us" surface over the course of a week or two, I thought maybe I'd finally run out of luck where allergies are concerned. I grew up in New England and spent almost 9 years in the DC area---never so much as a sniffle or watery eye. But given the entirely different make up of the flora waaaaaay over here, I thought maybe my body was finally rebelling against a rising pollen count.

Sooooo, I dropped Ethan off at a friend's house for a play date then sneezed my way back home (each sneeze thumping in my head like a hammer--good times), changed into my shredding gear and got to it.

Remember in my last post, how I said I was going to turn the volume off on the pain-whore and play my own music? Well. Funny thing. On Tuesday night, our TV went on the blink and when Husband, my tech-geek knight in pocket-protected armor, fixed it, he somehow forgot to rehook the video input from the DVD to the TV. So, ironically, I ended up doing the shred with no visual at all---just a black screen and the sound of *her* voice. ::shudder::

It was actually a really beneficial turn of events (or would have been, had I not been heaving to catch my breath through the pin-hole space in my nasal cavity that was actually admitting oxygen). I could see my own reflection in the television rather than watching those smiling, vacuous robots behind Jillian (hateful, much, Sarah?), and while it wasn't pretty, it enabled me to correct some the issues I was having in my form. And that, in turn, helped me get further into some of the exercises. Mentally, I was watching Natalie and finding that as I saw myself in the TV, I was lunging farther, squatting deeper. With the 3lb weights, for the first time.

I was en fuego. Doing a good job! In spite of the allergies! Woo hoo!!

Until I started seeing the spots.

Yeah, spots in front of your eyes are bad sign mid-way through circuit 2.

I did finish. I took more breaks than usual. But I did every exercise and I did them all to my best ability. Stupid pain-whore.

Telling myself that it was just allergies, I decided later in the day to go to the gym. Just to ride the bike a bit, walk a little on the treadmill. Just for a little bit. When I ride the bike, I put it on random hill and set it up to level 3 or 4. I could barely lift my legs. Spots. So I got onto the treadmill, which I'd normally never set to anything less than 3.6 mph. I found myself short of breath until I set it down to 2.4. Spots.

So I gathered up my kid from the gym play area, talked briefly with a friend of mine (who told me later that I was indeed a weird ashy color at the time) drove home (more spots), took my temperature and found that I was running a fever just shy of 101.

Hrm. Perhaps not allergies after all.

It's been a few days and I think tomorrow I will start again. Husband fixed the video connection, so perhaps I'll have to look at Jillian again tomorrow. I just hope it doesn't feel like starting all over again. Gah.