It was the best of times...it was the worst of times!

Through all my years of training for full and half marathons as well as triathlons of all levels I have discovered that you learn just as much, if not more, during a bad training day as you do during a great training day!

This weekend I had a 20 mile training run on the schedule. I decided I would do it on Saturday instead of Sunday to get it over with. I shared with a friend of mine that I had this scheduled and she asked, "are you ready?". I responded physically yes, I just need to stay out of my head. 

I had this brilliant idea that I would run the 20 miler during the last 4 hours of daylight. My thinking behind this was all of my training have been great when completing them after work compared to when I was doing them in the morning. So I got up, ran some errands and did some school work waiting for 3 pm, when I would start the run.

Around 2:30 I started to get ready. Bottles were full, stinger chews were lined up, one last trip to the fancy port-a-potty (the bathroom in my house) and I was off. I had my route mapped out. I would do a few different loops throughout my neighborhood giving me the option to return home to refill bottles and use the fancy port-a-potty. Things were going well.

Six miles down...return to top off the bottles. During the second loop I found myself drinking a lot more compared to the first loop and I was out of water by mile 10. I had two miles until I was home and my legs started to cramp...damn what was my body doing to me. I got back to my house, filled up my water bottles again and tried to start running again. My legs wouldn't move, they hurt, and I couldn't run another step. I ended up walking for an additional mile, thinking if I walked a bit I could start running again, that didn't work. I felt like I got hit by a Mack truck!

So what did I learn during all of this? Sometimes the best laid plans don't bring about the best results. Mentally I was ready for this run. I was excited to see if my brilliant plan would work. When it didn't and my body failed, I beat myself up. There was not one nice thing I was thinking about myself. So as I move forward into a new week I need to stay hydrated and let it go.

There is another 20 miler scheduled for Saturday!