Running on Empty... Sort of...

Oh my! I've gone a month without updating on my progress! Sorry folks! I've been making pretty decent progress. My knee is behaving better, although I have been giving it more TLC than before. I wear a brace when I run, and I make it a point to ice it as soon as I finish, even if it isn't hurting. That seems to be working pretty well, and like I said, my knee joint has been feeling a lot better! For the past few weeks, I realized that I had been in a bit of a rut. I hadn't run much longer than about 6.5 miles, and I have less than a month to go! Yikes! So I decided to go for an 8 mile run yesterday to kick it into gear! I geared up with my new running shoes, my hydration belt thingy (whatever those are called), and my trusty ipod, and set out! I completed the full 8 miles! Woohoo! This is officially the longest I've ever run! It was hard though. It was a pretty warm day, about mid 80's, I carried plenty of water with me, but I didn't bring anything else with me to fuel myself as I was on the go. On my shorter runs, I can get by just fine, but yesterday, I noticed a difference, and I could tell I was running out of gas. I got through my workout pretty well, but I felt drained the rest of the night and into the following morning. The worst part, was that my appetite right after was shot! I knew I needed to eat something to recover, but it was all I could to choke down what little I could! I pushed myself too hard last night, but I know what to do to hopefully avoid that happening again. I'll need to be sure to not only bring fluids, but something small to eat on my long runs to give me an extra boost of carbs so I don't completely crash! It'll probably do some good to eat a little something even before I go running. Not a huge meal, obviously, but a little snack between my lunch and running so I'm not running on nothing! I hope this works! I'm down to crunch time, and I have quite a bit more distance to work up to within just a few weeks!