The No Shit Epiphany

When I was about 12 years old, I was in a piano recital. I had memorized my piece (the name of which has long since escaped my memory) and had practiced it to near perfection many times. When it was time for me to perform in this recital in front of my family and many, many strangers, I totally bombed. I think my hands were on the wrong keys, so while I may have gone through the motions perfectly, it was a complete cacophonous train wreck. Come to think of it, the same thing happened in high school when I went to a regional typing competition (nope, not kidding!). I was one of the fastest typists in my school, and got to attend a typing competition at Marion Court College instead of attending school that day. Same thing happened. Instead of my fingers resting on the Qwerty row, they were resting on the Wertyu row, so I don't think I typed a single comprehensible word. 

The moral of the story: It doesn't matter how good you are, or how much preparation you've put in, if you make a stupid mistake, it will cost you.

I'm not only good at making stupid mistakes, I'm good at making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. When I learn my lesson, it's a new epiphany every time. I've started calling these my No Shit Epiphanies because after the shock & awe of my new found discovery sinks in, I immediately realize, "Oh wait, that's not new. That's common sense." To give you a basic example, I just discovered after my Saturday run of 17 miles that I should be drinking fluids. Sounds pretty basic, right? I'm sure some of you who are reading this who haven't ever trained for a marathon or a 5k probably know that running + hydration is a good idea. But not me! I actually didn't figure this out until MONDAY, two days after my run, and even then I think it was my co-worker and teammate Connie who pointed it out to me. We hadn't run together on Saturday, so we were giving each other a play-by-play of our runs. I told her how I had run 17 miles as two loops on the course, but I didn't time it well enough to take advantage of our team's water stops that were out there. I was too early for two of the water stops on my first loop, and too late for two of the water stops on my second loop. As a result, I only got fluid at miles 4.5, 9, and 11. From mile 11 to 17, I had nothing to drink. Basic survival instinct should have kicked in and made me feel thirsty, but instead I was busy switching tracks on my ipod, thinking that Black Eyed Peas isn't helping, maybe Eminem is what I need. I got through the run, and it was tough, but mostly I was just glad it was over. I drove myself home and carried on as normal, not realizing that anything was amiss.

The next day turned out to be a pretty scary day for me. I had a scheduled swim workout of 2000 meters. I love to swim, and even after a long run when my legs are shot, it feels good. The pool didn't open until 2pm that day, which worked out well because I uncharacteristically slept until 11:00am. Perhaps there were alarm bells going off in my head saying, "Something's not right!" but this ding-a-ling didn't hear them. I ate my usual breakfast around 11:30 and then didn't eat again before heading to the pool around 2pm. By the time I drove to the pool and got in to start my workout, it was close to 2:45pm. This is when I started to feel off. The only way I can explain it is that my mind and my body were not communicating with each other. I only did 350 meters of my 2000 meter swim, and I suddenly found myself getting out of the pool, much to my own surprise. I remember thinking, "Hrmm, why am I getting out of the pool? I guess I'm ending this workout early." Then I went into the locker room and just sat, soaking wet with a towel wrapped around me. I thought I just needed a minute, but one minute turned into forty-five. At one point a half naked woman came out of the sauna and cradled my face in her hand, asking if I was ok. I couldn't form any words, and just started bawling crying. It was beyond my control. I didn't even know why I was crying. I finally managed to say, "I'm just tired." I was able to get myself dressed and out of the locker room, but by the time I climbed the stairs to the lobby of the gym, I was completely depleted of energy. I had to sit down for another 10 minutes. I finally made it to my car and started to drive myself home. About a mile from my house, I had to pull the car over because I didn't have the energy to continue driving. I parked on the side of the road, killed the engine, then took a nap for about 45 minutes. When I woke up, I had just enough energy to drive the final mile home and get myself into the house, where I crashed again for a couple of hours.

I can hear my family members scoffing right now, saying, "God, you are so dramatic!" But those really are the facts. The scary part wasn't the lack of energy, it was the total disconnect between my brain and my body. I have since talked to my coach, my doctor, and a few of my teammates. The overall consensus is that I either had low blood sugar, or was dehydrated from the day before, or simply didn't fuel enough prior to this workout, or replenish enough after the workout the day before, or all of the above. So the No Shit Ephiphany of this story -- apparently I need to properly fuel with both food and fluids. (They teach you this on day 1, folks.)

Start of the 21-miler, 2012

Then it dawned on me today, 3 days after this episode, that this same thing happened to me last year after our team 21-miler on the course. Last year I was not eating flour or sugar, which made fueling during runs especially tricky. I was mostly fueling with bananas. For the 21-miler, I had two bananas: one that I carried with me and ate around mile 6, and one that I stashed on the course ahead of time at the 17-mile mark. For those of you doing math at home, that's about 200 calories worth of fuel over a 3.5 hour run. Nutritional guidance (which I knew at the time) was about 100-200 calories per hour. I know I did this math at the time because I remember saying outloud, "I'm not going to eat 7 bananas on one run!" So I didn't. I ate two. It didn't occur to me that improper fueling could be my problem when I was weak and sobbing at mile 18. I attributed that to weakness of character, being too fat, not being properly trained, etc. (Have I mentioned I am my own worst enemy?) When I finished the run, I experienced that same disconnect between my brain and my body that I just experienced this past Sunday. Our campaign manager was at the finish line with other volunteers from the Run For Research team. I was relieved that I had finally finished the run, but when she asked me how I was feeling, I just started crying. I was incoherent and couldn't form a proper sentence. She was concerned because the color had drained from my face. She came at me with pretzels and gatorade, and at first I refused, because I didn't eat flour or sugar. She insisted, and I gave in, thinking that perhaps in this instance pretzels and gatorade were exactly what I needed. And whaddya know, after a few minutes I felt better and my world didn't come crashing down because I ate flour & sugar. Millions of runners fuel with sugar, but I think I'm so unique that the rules of race-day nutrition don't apply to me? That's not willpower or persistence or tenacity, that's stupidity.

I don't want to turn this into a post filled with judgement or scorn, or nutritional opinion, so I will leave you with this No Shit Ephiphany, which a very wise friend said to me a few years ago: "Do the things that work, and don't do the things that don't work." Words to live by, for sure, whether you are training for a marathon, or figuring out a relationship, or just learning how to live a better life. And for those of us who don't get it on the first (or second, or third...) try, we just keep on keeping on. It's progress, not perfection.