Let this be a lesson for you: Long-distance running and high-fiber diets don’t mix.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And don’t say I didn’t warn you: Long-distance running and high-fiber diets certainly<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n 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…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Yes, one-liter, as in half a Coke bottle. When you order a beer at Oktoberfest, they give you a half a Coke bottle.\u00a0Of beer.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Bad gas.<\/p>\n 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!<\/p>\n Or was that a fart…<\/p>\n I turn off Jay-Z and call Pat.<\/p>\n “Um, Pat, I need you to come get me. I’m on Miller heading north. I think I’m about to shit myself.”<\/p>\n To his credit, he did not laugh: “I’ll be right there. On Miller?”<\/p>\n “Yeah, I should be half-way up the block by the time you get here. HURRY!”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “It’s OK, I’m not going to sit down – I don’t want to poop on your seat!”<\/p>\n “I don’t want you to poop on my seat either!”<\/p>\n “Just GO! GO! GO!”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “Damn, woman, you’re stinky!”<\/p>\n Or not.<\/p>\n We pull onto our street.<\/p>\n “The front door’s open! Go! GO! GO!”<\/p>\n I make it to the bathroom, where I lost about 2 pounds \u00a0or 0.9 kilos.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n I should probably go turn off that fan, now.<\/p>\n And tomorrow I’ll tell you the story of how I threw up on my shoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … Continue reading Runs<\/span>