Logging the jet lag chronicle here so that maybe I can better manage it in the future. So this is what I did to get here:
- Woke up Monday at 5 AM and then ran at 6AM in the CO for a little less than an hour. Just past 8 headed to DIA. Got a breakfast sandwich about 9 AM (bagel, egg, sausage)
- Flew from DIA to ATL from 10:30AM (mountain) to 3:30PM (eastern). Had a chicken salad on the flight . Flew from ATL (eastern 5:30) to LHR (Greenwich 6:30). Had the beef dish for dinner around 7:30 with a couple of glasses of wine. Couldn’t sleep on the flight really and watched the horrible movies, Prometheus and Abe Lincoln, Vampire Killer. Tried to sleep at this point, but found that I could not “let go” and my mind was working some numbers (related to work). Wrote them down on the back of a magazine. Then watched most of Real Steel (nominally better I guess but it is really Rocky meets Transformers meets some movie about a father son united that I can’t remember the name of ). Did the breakfast of eggs on the “wake up.”
- Got to the hotel around 8:30 and of course the room was not ready (no fault of the hotel, I mean who checks in at 830 AM?). Operated out of a co-workers room and went for a wet and little cold run. As would be expected, I felt pretty awake on the run mentally, but a bit sluggish physically.
- THEN – around 11 – I was fried. I met my colleagues for about 20 minutes and we agreed that a couple hour nap would be good for all of us. I slept fitfully, but it was greatly needed. We then worked for a few hours, and went to dinner. I got a burger (of course) and skipped the beer.
- Took a melatonin and hit the rack at 9. I woke up at 1, and was up for about 2 hours before falling asleep at 3 and then waking at 7. It was a bit hard to wake up.
So …. what does that mean?
- I still think that my strategy of staying up as long as possible to get here, so that it forces some sleep when I get here is best.
- Ideally, having a day like yesterday (our Tuesday here) where we get to transition through some of it is best – but my past experience is that I will have a tough go of it on Thursday (hitting 1PM and being shot).
- Increasingly I wonder if fasting through most of this is the best idea. It is a challenge to do that, particularly when provided a business class seat and a meal. At least this time, the meal came at a regular hour; on some of the flights to Tel Aviv we get a full meal at 11PM. Who the heck eats a full meal at that time? In any case, I have the typical American flaw: when offered something “free” I have to take it.
- I am not sure the melatonin helps or not. I am not really interested in taking some other sleeping pill, OTC or otherwise. I hear that some folks who take Ambien get hallucinations. I am really not interested in having pittbrownie dreams.
- I guess if I wake up at odd hours here I could go for a run, but given the colder temps of winter and the fact that I did not pack appropriately, I am not hugely incented to do that. Yeah, I packed wrong. Maybe the first time ever. I forgot some basic stuff like my stretch hat, and looser but warmer tights. I have enough of the basic gear to make it work, but I feel sort of like a rookie. They don’t have a gym in the hotel either, so no options there (although I did find the time and brain to pack a freakin’ tank top that I won’t need in these 20 degree days).
- And of course, flying west (back home) always seems easier to transition back.
All that said, I would probably sleep better if they stopped playing the Adele, 21 CD over and over and over and over in the lobby of this hotel.
