At work we now have this big coffee machine with around 20 different flavors of coffee and tea to choose from in individual sized packets. The packet goes into the machine and in a minute or two, out comes a cup of coffee or tea. Everything I've tried so far is good. Before this perk came around, I brought my own coffee to work and used a french press, since the gratis coffee (some schwag brand) smelled like burnt dirt.

I should not be drinking caffeine due to my stress level. Thus, I've been using the Flavia machine to make green tea instead. I get a big ol' fat F in stress management. Somehow I missed the life lesson that teaches us about the importance of recharging and having downtime. Optimistically I thought that perhaps I could wait until May when school is out to take a breather from a hectic schedule. My body told me otherwise. I've had some muscular soreness and spasms in my neck and shoulder the past couple of weeks because I don't know how to relax, and there were a lot of stressful things happening at work, so the stress manifested itself in my neck muscles. And this is where you might assume that I slowed down and took some much needed rest time. Ha HAAA!! No, Megabeth doesn't stop until she is dead! So I continued on about my busy ways until the pain became intense enough to bring me to a dead halt. People at work started mentioning to me that I look like crap. That is what chronic pain will do to you; make you look exhausted and darken the circles under the eyes. I stayed home from work for a week and caught up on a billion hours of sleep, and let the stress diminish until I could feel somewhat relaxed. Well, I don't know what relaxed really feels like, but I hope to achieve that feeling sometime soon.

This also meant taking some time off the bike. I was sad and wanted to cuddle with my bike since I wasn't riding it. I took five days off. On the sixth day I did a light workout in zones 2 and 3. The following day I did tempo intervals in zone 4. Being well-rested, my heart rate shot up to 170 without much effort. At 180 I still wasn't breathing too hard. The prior few weeks I was laboring to get up past 170 because I was so exhausted. My neck and shoulder are still tweaked, so I'm staying away from bike races until they get better.

I now have a "You have permission to yell at/slap/tie up Megabeth if she is pushing things too hard" support group. Workaholism is an addiction, and I think it's harder for others to detect because there isn't physical evidence (like with alcoholism, empty bottles), and because work is considered a good thing in American society, so much good that we should work our butts off all the time and only take one week of vacation per year.

If you're read this far, if you have any stress management tactics that you practice, post them in the comments section. I am to start doing some relaxing yoga poses and stretches before bedtime every night.