Always Be Prepared

That's a motto that everyone from a Boy Scout to you're average person knows. It's also what the nutritionist drilled into us last week --- "if you can't fuel it...you can't do it.". Of course, days later I found myself doing exactly the opposite.

Saturday morning I was scheduled to run 13 miles as part of my half marathon training program. I wasn't too worried. I was sure I would be fine and get it done.

Unfortunately (don't you hate that word?), I was also supposed to be at the beach this weekend --- which meant another solo run. As luck would have it, that was the least of my worries.

I've been busy at work and busy trying my best to get back on track with my triathlon training program. As a result, I squeezed in some spinning on Friday late in the day before rushing home and heading to the beach. The result was (1) I felt great and logged some time on the bike, (2) I wasn't ready to head out of town and (3) I was running around the house throwing stuff in my overnight bag...hoping I had everything. This is never a good sign.

The result was that I forgot to bring my hydration belt and any Glu's. Shit. You ain't finding any of that stuff at the beach before 10am on Saturday.

I did my best to mitigate these issues by changing my route to be more urban so I could stop as needed for snacks, water or help. Though this was the right thing to do since I had to stop a couple times to buy water it totally sucked. I ended up running south along Coastal Hwy to the end of the boardwalk and back.

Running on the narrow sidewalks with other runners and random bikers (get in the road!) and also navigating all the turning cars is not fun. All this makes for limited opportunities to turn your brain off and just run. :(

I motored along at a pretty slow pace and at the halfway point felt pretty good. Soon into my return I started crashing. The morning started off in the 40's and once the sun popped out of the clouds it was quickly in the low 50's...and I was really sweating and getting hot. Since I was conveniently on the boardwalk now, I stopped for another bottled water and added a big salty pretzel to nibble on.

Unfortunately I think my fueling efforts were just a tad late. I starting cramping up and ended up having to walk a bit. I was able to start running again, but by mile 11 I was officially done.

As I was stretching along the side of the road waiting for The Husband to pick my pathetic-self up I was reminded that I need to take this all a bit more seriously --- and always be prepared.
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