20 Miles Fueled by Taco Bell...Not

Before I embarked on my long run, I had already thought about what I was going to post. Friday I had a business trip and ended up getting stuck in an airport for about 5 hours to get home. Thankfully I was in the airport club, so not a bad place to be.. and free drinks! But I didn't touch one because I knew I was running the next morning. That was hard. Finally got home about midnight, and set alarm for 6:30 to get up and go. My Garmin also died suddenly - battery completely drained, so I had to make some strange arrangements to get my charger, which was in my office.

Anyway I had to eat dinner in the airport Friday night. My choices were a pizza from Sbarro, a Philly cheesteak or Taco Bell. Taco Bell had a big sign promoting their healthy choices -- basically the soft chicken fresca taco. OK, 190 calories, 6 grams of fat. It is chicken, a tortilla, lettuce and tomato. And Salsa and some kind of sauce. OK, give me 3. Tasted great, too. I kind of chuckled that would be last meal before my run.

In New York, the reason my flight was delayed was because of the terrible weather. It had rained all day Friday and was forecast to rain all Saturday too. That's Ok I have run before in the rain -- anyone living in New York this summer has. I thought about running on my treadmill, but I had been inside all week and just wanted to be outside. So outside I would go.

6:30 came early, but I got up, ate a slice of bread and away I went. First bad thing: Garmin had reset itself -- it had died, and all data lost. My profile, previous run, all of my settings, everything gone. Thankfully I had uploaded all my data so I didn't lose any data, but everything else had to be reset -- my profile (male, DOB, weight, etc.); my screens showing time, pace, etc.; Auto Scroll on/adjust senstivity, etc. Ugh.

And it was raining. Not drizzling, not misting -- rain. Yuck. Streets were also flooded, but not so bad. I actually looked at the weather and radar showed no major storms so I thought it would pass. It didn't. Off into the rain I went.

I felt bad, but struggled for several miles. And then it hit. A cramp in my stomach turned into an absolute I have to go to the bathroom NOW feeling. And not the kind you can duck into the woods and take care of. I had to find a bathroom soon, like immediately. I was running a series of loops, but I was at the exact opposite end of my loop from my home, so I would be back by my house in 3 miles or so. I tried to hang in there. Nope. I had to go. And I had to stop running -- just too much and made the feeling slightly less intense. Thankfully, my course also took me around by our tennis club, and I made an emergency 7:00 am pit stop, literally dripping wet, to the amazement of the cleaning crew. I just barely made it.

That feeling sucks, btw. It makes your gut just ache. And I knew it causes dehydration too. And it was 100% humidity. So I packed it in. I ran home and called it a day. 6 miles, I have no idea what pace. I'll just skip this run. No way am I going to suffer over 15 miles more in humidity, risk serious dehydration to run a 20 miler ..in the driving rain!

Thatis the first time I have ever bailed on a run before -- I may not make my goal pace, but always get to the end.

I have had this GI issue happen once before in my first long training run for my first marathon. I thought I would die. But I got over it, and it never happened again..until Saturday. Looking back on my sleep, hydration, etc., it was all ok. Why could it have come back? Umm, then I remebered...Taco Bell for dinner? What was I thinking?