I need to drink more water!

Saturday – 5 miles + Strength Training

• Kettlebells – Joint Mobility Warm Up (6 minutes)
• 5.00 miles, 1:01’ 18” minutes, 12’ 14” min/mile average pace, 164 BPM average heart rate
• Splits:
• mile 1 – 11’ 09” min/mile
• mile 2 – 11’ 06” min/mile
• mile 3 – 13’ 01” min/mile
• mile 4 – 14’ 24” min/mile
• mile 5 – 11’ 33” min/mile

Besides the fact that I am likely dehydrated, I feel like my run went much better today than last Saturday’s. I know that it isn’t really fair to compare a sort of horrible 9.5 mile run to a slightly dehydrated 5 mile run but I think my run today really helped to renew my confidence in my running. I did walk for about a half mile, which is likely the result of being slightly dehydrated. The only way to correct this problem is to make a conscious effort to drink more water every day. With my new training regiment, I am actually working out six to seven days a week much harder than I have been and I need to really focus on keeping myself more hydrated. My goal for next week is to drink at least 12 glasses of water each day.

My alarm went off at 6:30 this morning but I was not feeling it so I shut the alarm off and rolled over. Not such a bad thing though. If nothing else, I have really learned how important it is to listen to my body and give it what it wants. I slept for another hour and then got out of bed to start getting ready for my run. I ate my breakfast and changed into my running clothes. I decided to use my handheld water bottle today because I knew that my run wasn’t going to last much longer than hour so I wouldn’t need to take any energy gels with me. I filled my water bottle with 16 ounces of Powerade and 6 ounces of water. Before I headed out the door, I did my kettlebell workout. I know that is against everything I have said about my training and the importance of focusing on the most crucial aspect but today it is ok. My strength training workout for today is to just do the Joint Mobility Warm Up. I figured this six minute workout, which doesn’t use the kettlebell at all, would be a great way to loosen before my run. After the warm up, I headed the door and started walking to my running trail. After 15 minutes of walking, I started to run.

My goal for today’s run was to simply run and to not take any walk breaks. Of course, when I set this goal, I didn’t realize that I had not had enough water yesterday. Even though I started off at 8:15, the heat and humidity wasn’t horrible yet so I decided not to run through the residential neighborhood. After the first mile, I was feeling really good and had only taken a small sip from my water bottle. I was confident that I would have plenty of fluids and wouldn’t need to refill along the trail. By the end of the second mile, I started to fear that 22 ounces wouldn’t be enough. The sweat was pouring off of me and I only had half of my fluids left. The next half mile seemed to go on forever and the audiobook I was listening to was not helping me at all. It wasn’t distracting me from the fact that I was not going to have enough fluids to last me the rest of the 5 miles. Finally, my iPod told me that I had reached the halfway point so I turned around and headed back.
About a quarter of a mile later, my brain won the battle with my legs. My brain was working against me trying to get me to stop running and walk for a little bit. I kept telling my brain that I could walk in 2.5 miles after my run but my dwindling supply of fluids only fueled the fire. Much to my dismay, I stopped running and started to walk. Once again, I had hit the wall and couldn’t push past it. I walked until my iPod told me that I only had two miles left. Even though I only had two sips left, I started running again reminding myself that I had already run 2.75 miles today and that these last two shouldn’t be too hard. A half mile later, I was walking again and completely out of water. I thought about going back to water fountain I passed but decided that I didn’t want hot, stale water. After a quarter of a mile trying to figure out what to do, I made my decision. If I run the entire 1.25 miles I had left, then I would go to Starbucks as a treat on my way home. I started running again and actually felt better that last mile than I did during the first one. I successfully accomplished my goal of running the entire 1.25 miles I had left.

At this time, I would like to apologize to everyone that was in the Starbucks for being the gross, sweaty, smelly girl who tainted your morning coffee experience for about 10 minutes. I would also like to thank the employees of Starbucks for making me a damn good iced coffee. I really needed it and you provided it to me. I also bought a bottle of water and pretty much chugged it while waiting for my iced coffee to be ready. I left the Starbucks and walked home sipping on my iced coffee. Just to be on the safe side, I didn’t put any milk or cream in it and had the Sugar Free Cinnamon Dolce syrup instead of the Classic syrup. Oh man was it good. By the way, my audiobook of choice today was not a good one. While I like the book and will listen to the audiobook again, it did not create the desired result. The miles felt like they dragged on and my mind did not stay focused on the book. My mind wandered and was able to start working against me. I will have to choose a much better audiobook next week if I am going to stay distracted from the fact that I am running 11 miles. I am a little intimidated by the fact that my run next week is going to be double digits but I know that I really can run the entire distance. I am going to have to really focus on my hydration and find a audiobook that will help me stay focused my running and not on the mileage.

I also wanted to let you guys know that I will be starting a new featured article next week called A Few of My Favorite Things. Every Sunday (starting next week) I will be posting an article about a favorite thing of mine. It will be related to my healthy living and running lifestyle. I will be using this article to share with you reviews of my favorite books, recipes and anything else that has really inspired me along my healthy living journey.