Napping After a Meal,Birthdays and Western States Trail

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. These three alone lead to sovereign power."– Alfred Tennyson

In a November 22, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal, there was a brief article about napping after a heavy meal.  This napping is commonly referred to as a food coma.  However, what causes this postprandial somnolence is not clear. There is a popular belief that this sleepiness is caused by a lack of blood supply to the brain as the blood rushes from the head to the stomach to aid with digestion.  Unfortunately, this is just a belief and is not a fact.  Some ideas as to the cause of the sleepiness are as follows: 1.   Sleepiness is associated with changes in certain hormones induced by food. 2.  Sleepiness is simply feeling weighted down by a large amount of food sitting in your stomach. 3.  Sleepiness is caused by our bodies that are wired to feel tired during the afternoons and evenings, when there is a natural dip in the circadian rhythm. A person with a normal sleep wake cycle typically feels sluggish around 1 PM to 3 PM and again just after midnight.  Sitting around after a satisfying meal might make it that much easier to doze off. 4.  Food activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates our resting and relaxing  responses as opposed to the sympathetic nervous system, which regulates our fight or flight responses.

 For me, I remember sitting in a college class and having great difficulty staying awake after lunch, usually around one o’clock.   The subject matter of the class did not seem to matter as I had difficulty staying awake and taking notes.  Today, if I want to take a nap, after lunch, all I have to do is turn on the TV and off I go rather quickly I might add.

My 72^nd birthday was Saturday.  That is a lot of birthdays.    On my birthday day, I ran with Randall and Diane and ran extremely well and fast. Randall had not seen me run that fast before, and commented about it at my party that evening.  It was a good way to show off on my birthday.  Sunday was Chris’s 54^Th birthday, and we ran a nice easy 6 mile loop.

Today, I got serious and hit the trail with my dog Digger. We ran to the Quarry Trail at Highway 49 so I could refill my water bottle.  I saw couple people on horseback that I knew and then proceeded along the Western states trail towards Dead Truck.  That section of the trail is called dead truck, because there is a “dead truck” alongside the trail. Then we reached the Western states trail at about the 20 mile marker and headed in the direction toward third gate.  From there we ran up to 3^rd gate and proceeded home.  Digger and I probably ran about 18 miles or so and I was happy to reach home.  I can only speak for myself.  I had some discomfort with my left Achilles that bothered me on and off.  It is time for Advil and ice.