Since my dad learned how to text a year or two ago, we have started a morning text ritual. It’s partly proof of life and partly just a nice way to stay in touch. This morning, the text was:
Dad: Another nice day, though rain would be welcome.
Me: It sounds like it’s going to rain here all week. I wish we could send you some.
Dad: If we could move around weather as we want, we would probably really screw things up.
My father is very, very wise (and via multi-tap texting, I might add).
Just a quick scan of the news shows
the multitude of ways that politics, self-preserving tendencies, lack of environmental
concern (and on and on and on) motivate our world. If weather was controllable, we would have
destroyed each other millenia ago and our planet would be a scorched rock.
And I haven’t even added good old fashioned bad judgement into the mix.
Oh hey! Speaking of bad judgement and scorched
rock…
I like endurance sports –
marathons, Iron Mans, long distance stuff.
I also don’t like drinking water.
This is a well documented problem.
20-ish years ago, when I started
training for marathons, I didn’t even think about water or thirst. It didn’t even cross my mind. And I got sick. I got sick a lot. I got headaches and nausea.
I went to multiple race medical tents – even a Baltimore ER. It was awful, but
I still didn’t drink water.
When I started dating Dave, he saw the pattern: Faith goes for a long run on
Saturday morning, Faith gets a horribly bad headache and sleeps all day, we sit
down to dinner that evening at a nice Georgetown restaurant and Faith has to
run out in front of the restaurant to puke in a trashcan, and we have to go
home.
Best girlfriend ever.
With his encouragement and help from friends and coaches, I started doing better. I started to drink a lot of water the day before long runs and started carrying water with me. Things improved. I felt better in general, and didn’t puke nearly as much. We could actually make plans for the evenings after long runs.
Then, after 13 years or so, I started to get a little bit lax (or maybe the word is overconfident), and stopped focusing on prepping by drinking a lot of water the night before taxing workouts. I knew it was happening. I knew I was slipping, but I stopped making the effort and, honestly, nothing happened.
Until 2 days ago.
I went for a long run on Saturday morning. It was going to be a hot day, so I started early – out the door by 6 am. The plan was to get 3 ½ hours in and be back before the heat got bad. I had some Gatorade with me and there are 4 working water fountains along the way, so I was set.
I made it through the run, but when I got back to the apartment, I felt…not great. It had been years, but I remembered the feeling and I knew I was in trouble. It starts with weakness and a headache that will not go away and is followed quickly by nausea. Your body is screaming for water, but it’s about ½ hour too late. You try to gulp down water or Gatorade, but nothing stays down – your body rejects exactly what it knows it needs most to feel better. It’s miserable..
Fortunately for me, this time I was able to get through it without an emergency room visit, and by late that night was able to hydrate and function again.
It was really familiar and really awful and it was all completely within my control, until it wasn’t.
Oh, and it didn't actually have to happen...if I had just drunk water the night before. That's the best part.
What does my self-sabotaged Saturday and today’s
text message have in common? I’m not totally sure, and any connections I come
up with feel cheesy, but they feel really right together.
It’s raining here now, and will be
all week.
It’s not raining in Minnesota, and
they need it.
I wish I could direct the rain to
go where I believe it should go, but I can’t even be trusted with my own
thirst.
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