Yesterday I got roped into going to a "lunch" even though I knew exactly what was really going to happen there. As I suspected the beers came out before the food did and well, it spiraled and the next thing I knew I was about 6 beers deep and was thinking of food that is terrible for me that I was going to have when I got home. The worst kind of food that I try to avoid.
however, I have an ace up my sleeve when it comes to things like this and it consists of immediately putting my running shoes on when I get home and without missing a beat, head straight outside and just go do something, anything for an hour. I have no intention of beating my PB's during these sesssions, I just know that I want to get an hour of sweat in and considering that it was around 6pm in the dead of summer, this isn't that tough to pull off.
I don't drink while I am running although I have done that in the past. I wasn't drunk per se, but I had enough and I am sure of that. My pace at the start was actually pretty decent considering that my physical abilities were diminished and I had a bunch of liquid running around in my stomach.
In the 2nd km I kind of hit the pace that I have been aiming for but after that I intentionally slowed down and even fast-walked because I don't want to do something stupid like hurt myself. I alternated between jogging and walking fast for the rest of it and actually ended up going a full km further than I thought I was going to. I bring a big bottle of water with me on these things so that I can maybe succeed in replacing the bad liquid in my body, with the good liquid that is in my water bottle.
My heart rate was all over the place and I don't believe the part where it says I went into VO2 Max, I think that was a mistake on the part of my watch. I never really felt like I was pushing too hard during all of this.
In the end I burned off some of the excess of the afternoon and this is a big part of the reason why I do this at all.
500 calories is only about half the amount of beer that I had drank that day but it is better than the zero calories that I think the rest of the group burned off.
I suffer from guilt when I go drinking on days that I could have been doing something beneficial for my body and this is my penance. I don't endanger anyone else and I am not moving fast. I also am not recommending that anyone else actually do this. It works for me because I spent a lot of my life being a borderline alcoholic and am very familiar with how I move and how my body reacts to alcohol.
I don't actually want to drink all that frequently but will admit that I succumb to peer pressure when I am around people who I genuinely like and that was the case yesterday for sure.
Another benefit of drunk-running is that I think it must take a bunch of the bad stuff out of your body because here i am in the next day and I feel none of the bad effects that you would expect to feel from consuming too much alcohol. For me it is a win/win. It would have been better for me to just not drink but i'm afraid that is not the way I operate. When people who I like are drinking around me, I am going to do so as well.
They say that life is all about balance and I agree, even when your own physical balance might be a little less than perfect because of half a dozen large lagers.
