cinderella lost a bottle

i left the house around 8:30 this morning with high hopes for my long run. this was not a great week for my training schedule, so i was hoping to have a great run to mentally make up for it. i needed to add at least 2 miles to my last run of 9 miles - the schedule called for 12, but with the crazy hills, i always take that with a little leeway given the hip factor. i plotted out a 11.5 mile course that was part new, part old, essentially again widening the circle i would run, with the trusty gas station in the middle.

i left the house with my legs feeling pretty springy - unlike last weekend - and headed left instead of right out of the park, and looked at the ginormous hill that was my first challenge of this run. i had driven, but not run up this one before, but i predicted it would be hard but not back-breaking. i was right and feeling pretty okay most of the way up. as i neared the top, i reached back to grab my left water bottle which, to my surprise, was not there. shit.

i wondered to myself where i could have dropped it without noticing and the most likely place was unfortunately the grassy front lawn. shit. shit. shit. i thought for a minute if i could possible do the run with only 1 8-oz water bottle with 1 possible place to refuel and the logical answer was a definite no. shit. there was no solution but to trace the path i had come to get the lost bottle. grrr.

the run more or less went downhill from there. indeed when i got back to the house - there was the bottle sitting tauntingly on the front lawn. since i was here i ran inside to refill the first bottle and to see how far i had run so i could figure out how best to adjust my run. a bit over 2 miles...so i could then headout and do the same 9.5 mile route as last week. okay fine.

running back to one's house is no way to start a run, and it put a damper on my previously chipper mood. it was such a tease to have to go back out there again!

the run was going fine but a little slow, which i chalked up to the hills. miles 3, 4 and 5 passed without incident. i mentally mapped out the hard parts of the run that remained...that hill, and then the big downhill must be taken easy...then its rolling until that monster...okay cool this is nothing. and it was all fine until i took my 2nd gel somewhere between miles 8 and 9, for that is where my tummy betrayed me.

tummy aches and running tend to go hand in hand. ate something dumb the night before or the morning of your run? belly ache. goo didn't set well? belly ache. new flavor of gatorade? belly ache. running too fast? punishment: belly ache. the belly ache can also happen "just because". see, when you're running, all your organs are getting all jostled about in there, and that can cause some..."discomfort". well into my training for a 4th marathon, the sort of belly aches you can get from running are not new to me. luckily for me, usually i might get waves of the aches, but usually they pass after a moment or two.

not today.

as soon as i took my 2nd double latte power gel and washed it down with some gatorade i had a sense it was not going to go well. while i felt the instant rush of energy that usually comes with taking a gel, i also felt it instantly in my stomach. ugg. and this time it was not easing up. i managed to run along for another mile and a half or so, and then it was just NOT happening. every time i ran i could practically picture my insides sloshing around and so i ended up settling for a segment of run/walking for the last mile-ish.

usually something like this would cause me to be super grouchy but my legs were feeling fine so...i've been able to shrug it off. there is no way i could have run the last bit outright so i'm considering myself lucky to have made it all 11.7 miles with my legs feeling just fine - even if other parts of me weren't.

today's mileage: 11.7
time run: 2+ hours
season mileage to date: 140.8