Strange stuff…

For the majority of my runs, I don’t have a regimented routine prior to going out the door. I do have a pre-run routine for longer runs and hot-weather runs. Last weekend, I was heading out for a hot-weather run and I prepared just like I have for the other five or six that I’ve done this summer. In fact, the evening and morning leading up to it I hadn’t done anything different than usual.

This is why I was unpleasantly surprised when less than halfway in, I did not feel normal. My legs were starting to feel oxygen-deprived and my stomach was churning a little. This was a run where, once I hit my turnaround, I have two opportunities to take a shorter route home. As my regular readers have gathered, I’m a bit stubborn when it comes to running. When I came to the first turn-off where I could have gotten home quickly, I was not feeling any better and my Gatorade was soup-hot and running low. Yet, I figured I could power through and so I continued on with my normal route.

Right after this junction, I got into a section of the route that involves a decently long uphill and about halfway up this, I was regretting my decision because I was feeling worse. I told myself it was all mental and drained a bunch of my Gatorade while wondering whether I would get to the top.

I did crest the hill and this got me to a portion of the run that was downhill and flat. By the time this easy part was completed, I would be at the second junction where I would have another opportunity to either cut the run short or continue on. I reached it and though something deep in my brain told me the smart thing to do was to peel away into the shorter route, I forged ahead. I had another short climb coming up but it was the last one and surely by the time I hit the top, I would get a second wind and cruise home.

I was wrong. When I got to the top, my legs were still feeling weak and my stomach was at a bad spot. I was thinking I was either going to have a major GI-problem to deal with, or my legs would just get to a point where I had to stop for a while, or both. I was out of shortcuts home so there was only one thing to do. I motored, or maybe sputtered is a better descriptor, ahead.

As I headed down the sun-baked streets and wondered just what I had been thinking, I found myself settling into a pretty easy trot with the plan being to finish while still standing. Roughly a half mile from home, while there wasn’t even a trace of a second wind coming on or even a gentle breeze, I knew I would get to my driveway in decent shape. There would be no surge over the last quarter mile, or even fifty yards, but I would finish on my feet while running at a somewhat respectable pace.

The run did a couple of things for me. It reinforced that strange stuff just happens sometimes. I hadn’t consumed anything the day before or in the few hours leading up to the run that was abnormal, I had slept decently well the night before, and I had an appropriate level of coffee and breakfast in my system. Nothing on the surface could explain it. It’s another good reason to enjoy solid race performances or training runs and not take them for granted because it doesn’t always work that way. And, if something like this does happen, just keep trucking on the next run. And, strange things can happen in both directions, like an unexpected, good race performance.

This shouldn’t scare off any new runners. In fact, it should be encouraging. Things don’t always go exactly according to plan. It’s frustrating, but you can bounce back. When I got home on Saturday, I had a text from a friend of mine who had planned on a time trial that same morning. He told me he’d bailed halfway through because he just wasn’t feeling it and something was just off. Maybe the stars just weren’t aligned for runners this past weekend.

For the first time in several months, I have a running food review!

Running food review (note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race): Skratch Hydration Lemon Lime: The first time I got “lemon lime” it was a green Skratch package but it was green tea flavored. That will surprise your taste buds. This time, I actually got lemon lime, it tasted like lemon lime, and it was wonderful. Even better, I used it on day when it was 99 degrees. My stomach was a little funny during the first mile but after drinking some of this, I actually felt better and I felt good through the whole run. (It was obviously not used on the run I described in this week’s post.) Good stuff in this package.