Thursday, August 19, 2010

A good thrashing

Ali Crocker is fast. I knew this, but I chose to run with her yesterday anyway. We'd planned to do 7 miles, but then she didn't recognize the loop anymore, and I kept suggesting going the wrong way, and we ended up with 11 miles. I'd had mostly brownies for lunch, which tasted delicious at the time, but combined with not nearly enough water, I was hurting pretty quickly from dehydration, not to mention a pace that was fairly unsustainable.

After one of our slightly wrong turns, we ran into some mountain bikers who had technology, and they were able to show us where we were (approximately) on their phone, and it was quite obvious that the quickest way back was to go back down the hill. But I don't like going backwards. So, we kept going, and as Ali so aptly put it, at least I was the one who kept making this run longer, since I was also the one who was dying.

At this point I was dehydrated enough that I was getting shivers and my stomach was getting upset, but as we finally approached civilization again, and we came out through a farm where I pillaged a house for its hose. That gave me the liquid I needed to get back to campus, but I was a hurtin' puppy.

Of course, by now everyone in the office had gone home, and my bag (with, most importantly, the key to my bike lock) is in the office, and I don't have keys to the office yet. Its locked. My bike is locked. With no real choice but to hoof it home, I know that would be a long 2.5 miles. Running is faster than walking, so I started stagger-waddle-plod-stumbling, and eventually got home, bribing myself to get to points along the way (if you can make it to the stoplight, you can walk for 3 minutes!). As I started to make dinner, I felt myself getting weaker and woozier by the minute, eventually I couldn't keep standing to chop things or even dump the pasta in the water. I sat down on the floor, but, so hungry, and dinner isn't making itself. Feeling quite faint, I remembered that I had gatorade powder, and after three glasses of that I felt a whole lot better, but I'm wondering if that was a brush with hyponatremia, given how much water I'd guzzled at the hose and then at school before running home, all the while on a empty stomach. Anyway, dinner has never tasted so good... its been a while since I've been thrashed that badly!

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