Let this be a lesson for you: Long-distance running and high-fiber diets don’t mix.

Especially after you’ve spent a week-and-a-half ingesting 15 pounds of sausage and schnitzel – that’s 6.8 kilograms for those of you measuring in Germany.

And don’t say I didn’t warn you: Long-distance running and high-fiber diets certainly don’t mix when that 6.8 kilos of pork product have been washed down with 2.5 liters of German beer (which is the metric equivalent of two-thirds of a milk jug). And now, in your old age (39-and-10-months), you really don’t drink much beer anymore because your digestive system doesn’t really tolerate it to0 well.

It gives me gas. Bad gas. Gas of the mouth and ass variety. You have been warned. You can still turn back – and you can still respect me in the morning…

During my 10-day sojourn to Germany, I will admit to sand-bagging my half-marathon training program – initially because I had trouble adjusting to the time change, and then because I’d walked my feet to nubs hoofing it all over Berlin and Munich, and finally because I drank that 2.5 liters of German beer in Munich… in one sitting, standing, singing, sloshing slog at Oktoberfest. I did, however, manage a 30-minute interlude with the hotel treadmill in Stuttgart to sweat it out, but that was it. Unless, of course, one-liter bicep curls count as exercise.

Yes, one-liter, as in half a Coke bottle. When you order a beer at Oktoberfest, they give you a half a Coke bottle. Of beer.

Did I mention I don’t drink beer much anymore? The reason is because I have developed a slight allergy to brewer’s yeast – maybe more of a digestive intolerance. Suffice it to say, my drinking a beer these days is the metric equivalent of your eating a mini-loaf of Tillamook Cheese. It ain’t pretty.

So here I am, finally getting back into the swing of things with my running program: I have, after all, only 66 days remaining until I am scheduled to run the Las Vegas Half-Marathon with my dear friend Stacey for our 40th birthdays. In fact, she pinged me today on Facebook to see how my training was going. As a matter of fact, my training program had me scheduled to do a 45-minute run this very evening – intervals of fast then easy runs. I had my course laid out through my neighborhood. I had my Camelbak belt that holds my iPhone and a water bottle. I had my running mix queued on the iPhone, and I had finally triumphed over nasty bout of dehydration from the plane ride home. I was ready to rhumba.

And I had engaged in some colon therapy earlier in the day – just taking some fiber supplements because I have to do that now that I’m old. So the first 2 miles were great. I warmed up for 10 minutes at a nice, easy pace. The sky pink and purple from the setting sun. A handful of bats flitting around, clearing bugs from my path. I zipped through my first 4-minute hard drill, following it up with an easy 3 minutes, then ramping it up again as I turned into the adjacent neighborhood.

At this point my awesome Camelbak belt needed to be set aflame. Rather than sitting snugly on my hips, it kept riding up, so I kept ratcheting it up, tighter and tighter. First around my hips, then around my waist, and then under my boobs and around my ribs… and it was then that I realized I couldn’t breathe and the reason was because I was pregnant with an expanding bowling ball… of gas.

Bad gas.

I ripped the Camelbak belt off, my gut busting forth from the terrors of Dunlap syndrome (for those of you not from Louisiana, Dunlap Syndrome is when your belly done-lapped over your britches). I’m 2 miles from home and I’m hearing that old gurgling refrain of ‘GET ME TO A TOILET, STAT!’ Our good friends Paul and Liz live just one block away, I could probably make it to their house… running on my tip toes, squeezing my butt-cheeks together… I wonder if it’d be OK if I pooped in the desert. I don’t have a baggie to pick it up like we do with the dogs… then again, it’s dark and no one would see. Then again, there could be snakes… or scorpions. I don’t want a scorpion sting on my taint. I sure as hell don’t wanna get any poop on my running shoes. I gotta get to Paul and Liz’s house! I turn another corner… it’s not their road! It’s a block too soon, and it’s looping me back around to where I came from – their house is now two blocks away. Holy shit!

Or was that a fart…

I turn off Jay-Z and call Pat.

“Um, Pat, I need you to come get me. I’m on Miller heading north. I think I’m about to shit myself.”

To his credit, he did not laugh: “I’ll be right there. On Miller?”

“Yeah, I should be half-way up the block by the time you get here. HURRY!”

Now, I’m not really tip-toe running, I’m more limping, lurching, crushing my buttcheeks together to prevent epic embarrassment. I see two people with dogs coming toward me and I’m farting audibly, above the din of T-Pain… at least I think I am, and I hope they can’t hear… but I know the dogs can. They smell my fear and shame. Headlights up ahead! It’s Pat – I’m running out into the street to meet him so he doesn’t have to cut across the median. He slams on the brakes. I jump in the back seat.

“It’s OK, I’m not going to sit down – I don’t want to poop on your seat!”

“I don’t want you to poop on my seat either!”

“Just GO! GO! GO!”

I roll down the window, butt angled toward the desert. Damn, he just got his car detailed this week, I don’t want to ruin the paint job, but I don’t want to ruin the upholstery. I’m wearing compression shorts – maybe this won’t be as bad as I… oooh… fear. We just have to get home, maybe it’s not too late. Maybe that was a fart.

“Damn, woman, you’re stinky!”

Or not.

We pull onto our street.

“The front door’s open! Go! GO! GO!”

I make it to the bathroom, where I lost about 2 pounds  or 0.9 kilos.

Those were good running shorts, too. Fortunately though, I didn’t poop on my shoes – I’d already thrown up on them once this week, so this was an unexpected bonus. My only regret – besides my enthusiasm for my high fiber diet – is that I didn’t hit the bathroom with the Sarah Palin toilet paper.

I should probably go turn off that fan, now.

And tomorrow I’ll tell you the story of how I threw up on my shoes.