A thousand words for tiredness

Some of the things I've missed about long bike rides

“I’m so hungover!” I announced a couple of weeks ago, with a certain amount of relish.

It wasn’t really a hangover of course. I had cycled almost 200km the previous day, and as a result my body was feeling tired and achy. My head was sore, my mouth was dry, my skin was tight with dehydration, and all I wanted to do was curl up somewhere cosy and eat toast. The morning-after-the-night-before feeling was quite similar to a hangover – apart from the lack of nausea, and the fact that I was so happy about it. There’s an elusive sense of peace that I’ve only ever tasted the day after a big ride.

The beautiful Yorkshire Wolds: a new discovery, for me

I don’t know why we don’t have more words for tiredness, because this blissful exhaustion is so very different from the chronic fatigue I’ve experienced over the last two-and-a-bit years, when I’ve felt as though there’s a deep well of blackness inside me, that my entire body could collapse into if I don’t hold it together. All my eyelids want to do is close, and let my eyeballs sink back into my head. My limbs become heavy; moving them seems to take so much more effort, as if I were underwater, or wearing a suit of armour.

I haven’t felt that sort of tiredness for quite a while now, which is a relief, although I’m cautious about announcing my full recovery, because my experience of long COVID so far (if indeed that’s what it is) has been confusingly non-linear. There have been periods when I felt I was getting better, which were depressingly followed by relapse, and the resurgence of my symptoms. My optimism, and my eagerness to move on from this, mean that I over-interpret any small sign of improvement, and try to hammer it into a recovery narrative, when in fact a good day may just be part of the normal ebb and flow of illness.

So although I’d love to tell you the story of how I’m feeling better and better, and how I’ve started doing long rides again, and planning longer ones, I know better than to do so without a caveat. I’m feeling better currently. I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m making the most of what I can do today, knowing that I might no longer be able to do it tomorrow.

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But all of those caveats aside – I am so very happy to be experiencing the post-ride hangover again. I’ve missed it so much. It’s one of my very favourite ways of being tired.