A walk to remember

Last year, with all the long training walks I did for the half, I learned a lot of valuable lessons about nourishing my body and providing it with energy. Yeah, apparently I forgot all of those lessons since then. D and I headed out on a 4-5 mile walk today. I did try to be semi-prepared. I had carby snacks, ate a PBJ before going, had 2 bottles of water in the stroller, and had on sunscreen and a hat. But then, an old friend caught up to me on the trail, and we chatted some as we walked so I ended up going a mile further than planned. On our way back, at 4.22 miles, I stopped to let D go play on a playground right off the trail. He took off running, immediately tripped and scraped the mess outta his knee, blood everywhere. As I cleaned him up, my body felt weird. I knew what was coming then. It was hitting an energy wall. I immediately started munching on carbs and sucking down water, but it wasn't enough. We ended up sitting til the dizzyness passed, but were still 1.5 miles from home. So we got up finally and started walking. I didn't get far before I hit that wall again and had to sit down. At this point, I came very close to calling a friend to come get us, but wanted to give it one more try. Again, didn't make it far. As I was sitting down on the curb, the color purple in the stroller caught my eye. It turned out to be a bottle of Propel. Score!! Even though it expired in Feb, I quickly downed 1/4th of it. The resulting energy surge, and drinking the rest of it on that 1.5 miles, got me home. So...lesson remembered. Water is NOT enough for me. I think I was feeling a lot of that at the half last year too. My body needs those electrolytes. Moral of the story: know your body and be prepared, you can't afford to get stuck out on a trail somewhere!! (This is not the first time I have learned a hard lesson out on the trail...sheeesh) But despite it all, I feel great about having done a total of 5.78 miles today.