Dehydration, part two

Immediately after the finish of Hillsboro-Roubaix, when I felt like death warmed over, my only thoughts were “How in the hell am I going to run 20 miles tomorrow?” The Illinois Marathon is just three weeks away and this weekend was my last long training run before I begin to taper. Fortunately I recovered fairly well throughout the rest of the day and that night. When I woke up Sunday morning (after 10 hours of sleep) I didn’t feel completely terrible–almost like I could actually do the run.

I started running just after 8am. I definitely didn’t feel fresh, but I felt way better than I expected after the previous day in hell. The temperature was still cool (58F), but it didn’t feel cool to me. Just one mile in I was contemplating taking off my shirt. Ugh, here we go again. I had water with me and I drank regularly. I had chia gel (which is mostly water) with me and I ate regularly. It wasn’t enough.

I stopped back by home after nine miles to fill up my water bottle and drink a half liter of Gatorade. I went back out with a tank top, a new (dry) hat, and a soon-to-be-saturated wrist band to mop up some of the excess sweat. The temperature rose and I became more and more uncomfortable. What was I doing? I ran out of water at 14 miles, at the farthest point away from home.

I cut the run short… but not because of the dehydration. On top of the thirst I also experienced quite possibly the worst chaffing I’ve ever had while running. I don’t know how or why this happened, but I could do nothing about it. Every step was agony. One mile from home I drank for minutes at a water fountain on campus then I limped the rest of the way home. I felt refreshed. My legs actually felt no worse after 18 miles than they did at the start, which was one positive thing I can say about that run. The only other positive thing was that I covered most of the marathon course, including the one part I had never seen before. So now there can be no race-day surprises out on the course.

I spent the rest of the day eating and drinking everything in sight. My dad was nice enough to come over to help watch William while Melissa was running, because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This was one of the more exhausting weekends I can remember, though my actual workouts weren’t that hard. The heat just got to me. I need to lock this down, otherwise this summer will be downright miserable.