Bonk

I done bonked in a race today.  'Bonking' is the same as hitting the wall, it is where you just don't have the energy to keep going, although somehow you find minute amounts of energy to keep going but the whole thing is just a world of bad, and then you are last.  Okay, the being last part is not mandatory, but it is a likely eventuality when you are a slow and steady runner in the first place.  Bonk.

I have bonked before, although never in a race.  In fact, I once had what I termed a double-bonk in training, where I was both dehydrated and out of energy.  Bonks usually happen because you didn't fuel correctly and I can attest to that today.  Last night, I didn't really have dinner (long story), then today I decided not to take my caffeinated jellybeans with me, which was a huge mistake on a 10-mile race.  Part of me was thinking, '10 miles is not that long.'  That same part of me needs a crash course in distance.

I think that the bigger problem is that I don't have time like I usually do to keep track of everything and as a result, my nutrition and training has suffered--that being said, I don't feel like today was necessarily a training fail, since I felt pretty strong through the first 6 or so miles and my legs aren't in agonizing pain or anything now.  So I would chalk this up more to a bonk, but one that was in part due to not having enough time to cook/prepare food like I normally do.  In fact, I came up with a few percentages while out there today:

Normal percentages
Work: 40%
Running: 20%
Cooking: 20%
Other stuff: 20%

These days
Work: 60%
Major life-changing events that need to be dealt with: 30%
Everything else: 10%

So as you can see from this highly scientific study, I am much busier than normal with stuff, and as a result sometimes I don't have healthy, nutritious dinners.

I made a conscious effort not to get too upset about today.  It was only one race and I can pretty much guarantee that it was a nutritional bonk.  So I will just try and avoid that in the future. Next week is the Everglades race, which is 16 miles, so I will eat dinner the night before.  Learning.  It's all learning.  Even when you thought you had already learned that lesson, still learning.