Just Say No ... to Watermelon

One of the greatest things about summer is watermelon. I have loved this fruit for many years and so far this year I have enjoyed it more so than normal. Maybe because it has been on sale so frequently, or maybe because we've had more occasions this year to purchase them. For whatever the reason in the past month we've had 2 or 3 watermelons in the house. I'm the kind of person that once we cut it open, I have to cut out the entire melon and then save what we don't use in the first helping in the fridge instead of only using the little we need at the time and wrapping the unused part of the melon in foil. Well, the problem with that is the melon inevitably get older and soggy the long it stays in the fridge. So you must consume said melon before it goes beyond the point of no consumption. This then leads to me and the family eating lots of watermelon in a week span. While it is delicious, it does tend to have adverse affects.

Why did I just spend 5 minutes talking about watermelon on my running blog? Well, here's the reason. Over the past several weeks I have been planning to run 12 miles on Saturdays that I end up not reaching for whatever reason (too hot, too tired, not enough running during the week so my body was not ready for a long distance run of 12 miles and other reasons). Just as my previous entries you have seen that I have recommitted to reaching that goal of 12 miles. So last Saturday was going to be the day I achieved that goal. Since there was a party at the house during lunch and early afternoon I did not make it out to run until 7pm. As it turns out, it was a good time to run. The heat of the day was done, there was a nice breeze and all of the kids were in bed. I start out my run and I'm feeling good. The pace was good, my breathing was steady and my muscles were cooperating. This is where the first part of this entry comes into play. The day before this run and the day of I had consumed many cubes of watermelon. Though I realize my bowels might have issues with it eventually, at the moment everything seemed fine. At a mile and a half I began to feel the affects. My first thought was to push through it and it seemed to work for about a half of mile, but at mile 2 it was clear that unless I found a restroom and FAST I was going to be in trouble. It didn't help Looking back I should have stopped at a store and used their facilities, but in my mind I thought I was too sweaty for such a public display of bodily functions. So I decided to walk home (another mile and a half). At certain points I started feeling good again so I began to jog, but after a minute of that I had to stop and walk as it seemed the bouncing motion of jogging only aggrivated my condition. So I walked on. Eventually, I walked through a park as a short cut to my house when I realized the park had open restrooms. Even though, I was only 2 minutes away from home, my body said, "You are NOT going to make it home!" Thankfully the door was unlocked.

Though this experience could have ended very badly, it did teach me a VERY important lesson. When training for a half marathon, just say NO to watermelon. Gotta run.