I’m still thinking about last weekend’s getaway to Angel Fire, where the temps were so much cooler and the trails were tree covered. I gave hydration special attention today in the 90° plus temps but failed. I drank a pint of electrolytes before my run but made the error of not drinking during the run until after 3 miles. I should have started sipping immediately.

I walked half my return on a 12 miler. I depleted my liter of water early and almost called Karen to pick me up as I became nauseated. I didn’t wear a watch or my heart monitor today but I could feel my heart racing and that’s what would lead me to walk. I can’t say if it was my A-Fib kicking in without my chest strap, but it felt like it was acting up.

I’m deliberately practicing my hydration routine to prep for Bandera but clearly I have a ways to go. Hydration, meaning both water and electrolytes, is critical. You can recover from a lack of calories but you can’t recover from dehydration while continuing to run. You have to DNF. Or you should DNF. Unfortunately, dehydration impairs your decision-making and so many runners continue to run until they drop.

I recall running the Beach-to-Bay Relay Marathon in Corpus Christi in high school and college. I think I ran it 6 or 7 years in a row. One year in high school, I wandered down to the water after my leg and fell in because I was so delirious. We had to rush another runner from my team, Jessi Montez, to the hospital after he became dehydrated. My last episode with dehydration was the Desert Rats Ultra this spring. I was cramping and couldn’t maintain my balance afterwards. It was a bit embarrassing really but my friends were there to help me.

I’m grateful the air quality improved enough today after the fires to run outside. I ran most of the week indoors, on my elliptical which is sort of like running without gravity. If it’s not smoke in the air, it’s unbearable heat. It’s getting hard to be a runner anymore.