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.

There's some good news and some bad news

Good news: I can still run 12 miles!  And while I will admit to walking once or twice, I did not have to walk for any significant amount of time, unlike a few months ago.  I consider this to be a major achievement after the past few months!  And the weather was great!  Low 70s at the highest point with not very much humidity...by Florida standards....it was in the 60-70% range, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

The bad news:

1) I sure didn't run them very fast.
2) I sure didn't run them at a consistent speed.
3) I think I double-bonked, if this is possible (bonking is what used to be called 'hitting the wall,' which is when your body up and quits.  Sometimes your brain up and quits.  I've been close to this before, but today I think I was over the edge.  If you want to know more about bonking than you ever thought that you would know, Runner's World has a detailed article).  I definitely felt a drop in energy at the half-way point, then felt better after having a mini-Clif Bar (I am out of sport beans.  Boooooooooo).  I'm going to assume that this was Bonk #1.  Bonk #2 pertained to fluids, or lack thereof.  I passed the neighborhood water fountain at 4 miles and thought, 'Meh, I'm doing okay.'  This was a stupid thought, because I still had 2 miles to go out and 2 miles to go back.  For those of you who are slow at math, that was 4 miles.  I should have just stopped at the drinking fountain both times.  Oh, and I was out of healthy Gatorade (Recharge), so I used the last two packages of healthy Gatorade juice crystals--the ones that offer basically no caloric support.

I'm going to blame Bonk #1 on the fact that I didn't plan my eating very well today and I was probably drained by the time I actually got out to run.  Yet another reason to do long runs in the morning (although truth be told, I don't really need to remind myself of that).

Another idea I had: maybe don't try a long run the day after your toughest yoga class of the week.  I started with some tired legs.

But what matters is that I did it, and unlike on Sunday, I didn't quit after 2.5 miles.  So it was an aberration.  I think that I may play this half by ear, depending on the weather.  If it's back to classic Florida conditions, it might be a good day for run/walk.  If not, I'll do my best to full-out run (or my current version of full-out running, which is not really 'full-out').  I knew that this half was not going to be very good, so my motivation will be just to go out there and do it.  It is the first of four, I get three more chances.

One thing that does need to change: I need a better training plan.  This one is not challenging enough.