tmi run

it’s a cold and dry morning in santa fe, new mexico. we left southern california yesterday to drive out to colorado springs to spend the week with my grandparents. two friends of ours, tim and jeannie came with us. we spent about 15 hours in the car yesterday, but having good company for the drive really makes the time pass quickly.

i woke up early this morning, about an hour before i’d set the alarm. i laid in bed debating whether or not to run, and if i did run, was i going to do 10, 8 or 6? i went back and forth, and finally decided to put my running stuff on, and at least get in a couple miles. i figured that if i felt good a couple miles in, i’d keep going and maybe stretch it as far as 10.

the temperature was in the high teens when i went outside. this time though, i’d put on my christmas long sleeve top and leggings, along with a nice fleece beanie and gloves. i was ready for the cold, and there’d be no wiener-bite today! the cold run on christmas morning had served as a good wake up call to making sure i didn’t freeze while running in much colder climates. i started up the road that our hotel was on, and by the time i’d hit 2 miles, i realized that i’d just come up a pretty steep incline. my right calf was really feeling the hill and was getting tighter and tighter. i decided to go ahead and make it a short 4 mile run and i turned around to head back to the hotel.

as i started back down the hill, my legs started to loosen up a bit, and i thought that i might feel up to adding some more miles on once i’d reached the hotel. i spotted a jeep trail that went off into the desert, somewhat paralleling the road, so, i hopped the fence next to the road and headed off into the desert. after about a mile, the hotel came into view, and i could see that the jeep trail split and i could either keep heading out into the desert, or head straight for the hotel. back when i’d turned around, my bowels had started to let me know that they wanted me to visit the nearest ‘facilities’. when i came up to the split on the jeep trail, my stomach started cramping and my bowels REALLY didn’t want to wait any longer. i decided to take the jeep trail back to the hotel.

this next section is a little too much information, so if you’re easily grossed out, move on to another blog…

the hotel looked like it was about a mile off, so i stripped the gloves and picked up the pace, eager to get back to the room and relieve the pain and pressure in my bowels. a couple minutes later, my stomach cramped so badly that i had to stop running. it nearly doubled me over in pain, and i knew that there was no way i was going to make it back to the hotel room before i had to void. i moved over into some bushes, squatted up against a snow bank, and left my own steaming mile marker. the relief was GLORIOUS. i nearly passed out. i cleaned up with a little snow, pulled back up my clothes and began a slow jog back to the hotel.

i had successfully avoided wiener-bite, but that pain had been replaced by the humiliation of having to perform a finishing lap of a run doing the crappy-crack waddle.

the moral of this story? high fiber diets aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Posted by jeff at December 27, 2004 9:12 AM