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So last night, I was feeling unusually hungry after work. Particularly odd since I had had a late lunch. I was also feeling pretty miserable from my allergies. Something in the air was bothering my nose.

We went out and grabbed some sandwiches from Subway. They had just added Wild Cherry Pepsi, and I was quite happy to see that. Got home about 9:something, and I decided I’d pop some Clariten-D since I really wasn’t feeling it. The ones I have now contain pseudoephedrine as a nasal decongestant.

I looked up some things trying to figure out a way to write a terminal/console in Windows (I’ll write about that later). Right before I went to bed, I’d found some promising information and was rather excited. But I went to bed anyways since we were planning to get up early for the gym.

Normally waking up every two hours wouldn’t constitue a good night’s sleep, but come 5 AM I was feeling pretty good, and ready for the gym. We head off and as always we start with some cardio. I run on the machine, and I’m feeling pretty good. I wasn’t having a problem running at a pretty good rate with a good amount of resistance. I’m not feeling much/any fatigue. I attribute it to it being a poorly calibrated/adjusted machine and me being excited about my previous night’s discovery. I hadn’t used that particular machine in a while but some machines just seem easier than others.

Next up we hit the weights. We start with the lats. Normal weight. My sets feel pretty good. Again no muscle fatigue. By this time I’m wondering if something is up. We hit the squat machine. Not too much of a difference there, though less fatigue. Crunches on the big balance ball thingies - again no muscle fatigue. Machine after machine I’m feeling pretty good (and wondering what’s up). I decide since I’m feeling so fucking good I should take advantage and have a damn good workout. I add another 30 lbs to my overhead press. We visit the hip machines where you either spread or close your legs. I don’t particuarly work hard on these, so usually not that much weight. I sit down, typical weight (50-70ish). Hrm.. feels really easy. Really easy. I’ll add .. hrmm.. 100 lbs more. That was a bit much. Tough, and maybe if I was maxing. So I drop it down by like 30 and crank out my sets. I’ll go to the opposite machine and I do twice my normal amount of weight. I try the assisted bar dips, and half my normal amount of weight, and crank off a set. Wow! I’ll be sore tomorrow but at least I had an awesome workout.

I go back to the cardio, and get on a bike and check out my heart rate. Pretty much inline. I’m wondering if pseudoephedrine is an upper.

I get home, google a bit. Pseudoephedrine may cause sleeplessness, and is considered a stimulant. Apparently it is also a banned drug for athletes. Structurally similar to amphetamines. Physiological effects: increased metabolism (nor really feeling that), heart rate (not feeling that), energy (I guess), nervouseness (no), alertness (umm.. dunno), reduced appetite (not a big eater anyways). Another site talks about why it (and other stimulants) is banned as a performace enhancing drug: “increasing ability to exercise at maximal levels as well as reducing feelings of fatiuge”. Definitely feeling that. Feels like beyond maximal levels to me. Or maybe I’ve just been to conservative in my workouts. The sites are a little contradictory though. Another lists side effects as including “muscle weakness”.

I’m definitely not feeling the increased heart rate though. When doing my cardio I should probably have been at least 10-20 beats per minute higher based on previous experience. And I’m not sure if I’m much more stimulated than usual. Not so much that I can’t attribute it to my geek discovery from the previous night. And I’ve taken Clariten-D before without and noticeable effects.

Oh well. I feel kinda like Peter Parker, the night after. I’m not any buff-er, and I still need my glasses, but my workout was quite an eye opener.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2004 at 8:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.