Natural Gatorade = Natural Disaster

I know you all are DYING for updates on my training… but first what you REALLY want to know…

1.Last night on Big Brother After Dark, Lane used Just for Men on his beard. It stung a little and Hayden thought he should have left it on a little longer so it would be darker, however, Enzo thinks it’s dark enough.
2.I watched the entire second season of Everest: Beyond the Limit and ANOTHER documentary on Mt. Everest. It’s like I’m stalking the mountain. Last night I was recognizing landmarks without the help of the narrator. Seriously… this has gotten out of hand.

This last weekend marked my longest run to date. I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday… drank my coffee.. watched Big Brother and ate my Power Bar. I met my friends at 7 and thought.. ok last week for 16 miles I drank only Gatorade during the run and I felt great. I’ll do that this time- but because I’ve lost a bottle on my fuel belt (which would normally just hold water) I’ll bring an extra Gatorade with me. And not just regular Gatorade… “NATURAL” Gatorade—bought on a whim at Whole Foods. Spoiler Alert… this was not a good whim.

So we’re off. I drink all the Gatorades and I’m feeling ok until we climb a huge hill at about mile 16… we’ve had to stop because of traffic a few times and I really am not sure my legs can take it… but even worse- I realize that my stomach can’t take it… in fact it’s pissed about this Natural Gatorade and wants to make sure I know it. I’m already sensitive to sugar … and the “natural” gatorade was sitting like a rock in my stomach and I feared the worst… I’ve seen the pictures.. I know what can happen.

I tell the girls to go on ahead when we reach mile 17… I’m going to have to walk. I couldn’t believe it. I’d made it 17 miles and I was going to WALK the last mile? I jog/walked the rest of the way… and as my stomach began to feel better, my ego felt worse.

On my drive home I called my mom nearly in tears. I felt like a failure. I didn't make it... and I should have. However, two of my friends ran 12.5 miles on Saturday rather than the 13 they’d planned. Was I disappointed in them? No… I was happy for them and excited… so why would I be so hard on myself?

I went home and paced around the house… I couldn't relax and I couldn't even get into my post race routine … I just couldn't get it out of my head that I didn’t “RUN” 18 miles… I couldn’t see that what I had accomplished was a pretty big deal.

Yesterday I was telling my massage therapist about it and she says, “Kacee, you are stupid.” That made me laugh 1. Because she is Ukrainian and her voice always sounds like she’s scolding me and 2. I realized she was completely right. One way or another I accomplished my 18 mile training run… and it’s called “training” for a reason. So for the next five weeks I’m not only training my body, I’m training my mind and trying to realize that sometimes everyone has to walk.