My last word on El Scorcho

So I've had 36 hours to dissect my performance at the El Scorcho 25k last weekend...

 

36 hours to figure out why I cramped, why my pace went from 8:20 to 9:20 to 11:20 in a space of three miles....

 

And my thoughts keep taking me to my diet.

 

The race was at midnight. I had my last sizable meal 28 hours earlier: two big bowls of spaghetti and two glasses of wine.

 

I woke up Saturday not hungry at all and had to force myself to eat some rice and an English muffin with honey and peanut butter around 9 a.m.

 

At about 1 p.m., I had a salad with cheese, salami, ham, walnuts. And a cup of coffee.

 

At about 5 p.m. I had an apple, a banana, and some peanut butter.

 

And that was it until the race.

 

Funny thing. Now that I remember, my stomach was growling as I lined up for the race. I thought it was just nerves.

 

No, stupid. I. Was. Hungry. And I hadn't had a lick of salt all day.

 

So when things started to go haywire at Mile 7, it was, it had to be, because I was out of fuel.

 

My mistake is that I kept drinking water and the electrolyte drink the race organizers had on the course, Nuun, which had Zero Calories.

 

What I should have done, in hindsight, was brought some of my Accelearade to make a carb shake. It has 21 carbs, 5 proteins, and tons of electrolytes. When I got home, I kept drinking water and Gatorade trying to hydrate (I lost 6 pounds of water during the race) and nothing made me feel better until I had to Accelerade.

 

So a lesson learned. Can't wait until the next long race.