Ok, thank you for reading my little bit on IBS…

And in light of my recent issue with it, you can understand why I was dreading my 18 miler this weekend. I should add that the 18 miler should have been last weekend, but stomach issues and blisters prevented it.

I considered taking an Imodium the night before, but the truth is that I hate to take medicine. I’d rather figure out a way to deal with it naturally before I start shooting my body full of chemicals. Since my issues seemed to get better by Friday evening, I decided to treat Saturday morning the same way I treat every morning of a long run.

• Lemon water as soon as I wake up
• A PB and J sammie one hour before I run
• A lot of toilet paper packed into my Delaney Race pack.

I had zero issues!! It was great!

As always, the first few miles are tough, but by the 3rd or 4th mile I started to feel amazing. I had a great route through the farms of Hollidaysburg and got to see lots of horses and cows.

At one point I was running past about 15-20 cows grazing in a pasture and it was so picturesque. I noticed one cow watching me. I looked down at the ground and looked back up to the cows and noticed another cow watching me…then another, then another, then another…until every single cow had stopped grazing and was just staring me down. It was really kind of creepy.

Every 5 miles I took a Clif Shot Energy Gel with some water. It’s amazing the gels don’t bother my stomach. They seem to bug a lot of people, but I actually really like them. I use the strawberry flavor and I love it!

It was really windy and at one point (around mile 12) I felt like I was going nowhere because of the head wind. I actually screamed, “COME ON!” (just like GOB Bluth).

At the half marathon point I looked at my Garmin: 2 hours! And I felt great. 4 hour marathon maybe???? One can only dream…

I think at the end my average pace was 9:10. If I keep up the speed work it might actually be possible.

Anyhow, the last 2 miles were kind of tough, but I finished. And to be honest it was only 17.56 miles, but whatevs. Close enough to 18 for me.

Afterwards I mixed a red Gatorade with coconut water—I SWEAR by coconut water. I had so much energy for the ENTIRE day. Usually I laze about like a log after a long run, but if I drink coconut water immediately following, it’s like I ran 3 miles and just have really sore legs

I don’t really like the flavor by itself and so that’s why I mixed it with the Gatorade.

Anyhow, this was kind of a boring recap, so I’ll just sum it up for you with three points:

• Lemon water + PB&J = no long run runs
• Regular gels + water = no burnout
• Long runs + coconut water = the life of the party

What party? Levi’s PAR-TAY!

Seriously love that kid. The party was great! The cake was both cute and delicious and I could have eaten the entire thing by myself. Also, I kind of want to eat Levi. In a non-creepy, I-love-you-like-my-nephew kind of way.

What do you do to keep up your energy after really hard or long workouts?

Do you talk to yourself on your runs? Or yell at the wind like I do?

If/when you have a kid—what will the theme of their first birthday party be?

I really have no idea about a party…maybe some kind of animal theme (like lions, because I’m obsessed). I loved Levi’s dinosaurs! So perfect!