On Saturday I woke up early, hoping to get a longish run in.

I didn’t eat anything before running, which was a mistake. I can’t eat a lot before running, but I need a little gas in the tank.

I set off on my run and noticed the humidity in the air. I just felt like I was slogging. Monsoon season has started in Las Vegas, where we get these sudden cloud bursts and flash flooding ensues. Since the ground is so dry from no moisture, when we get a good downpour the ground can’t soak it up fast enough and it often runs off. Also, the mountain nearby has been on fire (nearly completely contained now!) and that has destroyed a lot of vegetation, so any good downpours are threatening to send tons of ashy mud down the mountain into Las Vegas. Apparently that had happened a couple of days earlier in one area that I ran, because I passed a fence that was a new color due to that mud runoff.

 

I’m an Island Boost Ambassador, as part of that program I got a vial of the new chocolate flavor that is being developed. I was planning on using it on this run. Our instructions were to sample it before the run, then during the run to see how it tastes/feels differently when our body needs that fuel more. So I took a small sip before and I was very impressed. The chocolate flavor was decadent, but not overwhelming. I’ve tried a couple of chocolate gels and they were gaggy. (Yep, gaggy is an official term.)

Midway through my run I started to feel sick. I had this issue on several run days during the week as well. I think that I need to wake up even earlier before I start to run. In the past I would wake up and spend 30 minutes or so wandering around my house, getting dressed, preparing… Lately I’ve been waking up and then spending 20 minutes sitting while pumping. So that doesn’t give my body a chance to get moving as efficiently before running. And when I need to shower after the run, get the baby dressed and still try to be working by 7:00… every minute in the morning counts!

Anyway… back to this run. About 2.5 miles away from my house I started to feel sick. REALLY sick. So bad I had to sit down on the curb for about 15 minutes with my head between my knees willing myself to not be sick. When I finally had the strength to stand up, I knew that I wasn’t going to be running my original plan. I needed to get back home. When I stood up, the vial of Island Boost chocolate fell out of my new Camelbak Arc Quick Grip handheld. I looked at it and debated what to do with it. Should I take it, since I’d already broke the seal? Should I save it until I was REALLY working hard? But I knew Laura from Island Boost was hoping for feedback soon, so I decided to take it and see how it went.

Despite my overall queasiness and intestinal distress, it still tasted great and went down easily. And surprisingly, my stomach started to settle after I took it and made my way home. Was it a complete cure-all for the tummy troubles? No… but I think it helped me to get home faster and helped me avoid another bout of sitting on the curb waiting for the feelings to pass.

I’m excited for this one to make it to market because it was great. I was nervous, I had some weird vision in my head of this mix of the fruity flavor of the other Island Boosts mixed with chocolate and that sounded terrible to me. But that’s not the case, this is nice pure cocoa flavor. It’s a winner!

Now if I can just wean myself from the pump so I can hopefully feel better on morning runs!