Not such a good idea.

I went out last night for a typical mid-week 5k steady state run. After my last two runs – with good first and third miles – I was hoping to improve that second leg split. With that in mind, I tried to go out with a quick clip, and after I passed the one mile mark I pushed myself to keep up the pace.

As I neared the end of the first mile, I thought my legs felt a little deader than usual. That’s odd, I thought, since they were fairly well rested. When I hit the one mile split I realized why – I ran it in 7:15. I typically cover the first mile in 7:45 to 7:55. Oops…

No matter. Let’s keep going! I expected the second lap to slow a bit from there, but my goal was to hit my goal split – around 7:45 to 8:00 minutes. Coming into the second mile split, I felt a bit tired but, low and behold, the time was 15:15 – an 8:00 minute split for the second mile. Woot!

The celebration didn’t last long, though. Just about when I looked down at my stopwatch, I felt some gas come bubbling up. But, the burp never came out. I didn’t feel so good…

I’d had a pretty big dinner (mac and cheese, ftw), but I let it settle for about two hours before I went out running. Apparently that wasn’t long enough. I stopped running and fought the urge to upchuck for a minute or two, but eventually I lost… and the mac and cheese was all over the grass. Yuck.

I walked about a quarter mile, then finished up the loop at an easy pace (8:30 – 9:00 mile). The moral of the story… run before dinner. Not after.