I swear I'm normally a lot smarter but ....

I am suffering from a serious case of workout brain so I am not my usual witty self. In fact I spent the day having extreme difficulty concentrating and coherent sentences just weren't happening for me. After I did my evening class I actually spent a solid 5 minutes in the car park convinced my car had been stolen (and panicking like a panicky thing) but then I remembered where I parked it and all was well with the workout. I was relieved, obviously, but then maybe more than a little worried about my mental state in general and the fact that I was expected to drive back to Waterford. Fortunately I have made the drive so many times I can do it on automatic, which was for the best because it seems automatic is all I have left.

 When I got home this evening I actually spent a full 2 minutes absentmindedly trying to force a box of crackers into my fridge before I realized what I was actually doing and so it will go for the night because there is no cure for workout brain except sleep. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what workout brain is , let me quickly explain.  Workout brain is when you are so tired from exercise ( I find it's mostly heavy weight that does this to me so yay for olympic lifting) that your brain stops functioning at it's normal capacity and for me it's quite the difference. I consider myself fairly bright (I'm not normally an idiot) and I'm notorious for my sharp tongue but the most I can seem to manage with workout brain is huh. It's a case of I can't brain today, I has the dumb. I think that sums it up best of all.

 The other day I was driving my sister and her kids home and she pointed out that I was in fact driving to her house the long way. It so happens the long way is the way I know really well and the shortcut , well without directions I could be driving those country lanes until I run out of petrol. I had to explain that my brain couldn't cope with any new information so I was going to drive the way I knew . I was tired, hungry and sore so there was no point in talking logic to me.

 The strange thing is I've only started experiencing the full joys of workout brain since I started doing a lot more olympic weight lifting. Not that I'm lifting anything that heavy but it's always heavier than the biggest kettlebell I can manage. So I'm assuming its the tiredness that's doing it. And this week particularly I have just been a pretty face, in that I have been mostly decorative so apologies to anyone who had the misfortune of trying to make conversation with me during this time. 

 This week I had the good/bad fortune (depending on how you look at it) of being at a crossfit class that my sister was teaching with only with other woman and so we got a lot of extra attention which was good in a painful sort of way. I managed to go up in weight, in a exercise that uses a barbell, when I thought I'd already hit  my limit and I managed to hold a plank for a full two minutes when I really wanted to drop and yes I may have thought some rather unsisterly thoughts while working out that day but I was pretty delighted with myself afterwards. On balance having your sister as a trainer is both an awesome and terrible (only during the workout) thing. 


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