Today was a brutal lesson in hydration. We ran a 20-miler out on the PCT race course and I was not prepared for how hot it was. (83F) I started the day with 40oz of water and Nuun. In my pack for the run, I had 64 more ounces of water with 8 servings of Nuun in it.

The run started out going up… and it continued up some more, and then when you think it is going to start going down, it goes up more. It was almost 10 miles of up, 10 miles of down. The problem was I ran out of water/nuun at mile 13. This is a big problem, knowing I had to run 7 more miles, downhill albeit, in the heat.

Long story short, I was super dehydrated by the time I got done, to the point running was not really happening, it was more walking those last miles.

So I ran for 4:15:00, covered 20.07 miles, and climbed about 5200′. See the map/elevation profile below. This certainly wasn’t the way expected to run my first 20 miler.

Cheers & Beers!