By Chamberlain Zulauf, Student Reporter
A dedication to water: without water I would not be able to run like I do. I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything without water, much less go on hour and a half long runs. On the hottest of summer days and even on the coldest days of winter, I find myself in a reverie of water. There is a point in some workouts where I’m more so running to water instead of getting my mileage.
There is a specific tool I use to fight this hydration battle— a 32 oz. Nalgene bottle, which, like my phone, feels as if it’s a part of me. My bottle is dark blue and stickered-up; there’s some wear and tear around the corners from tossing it around so much but durability is its guarantee. My water bottle is something I interact with many times throughout the day and there is no better friend to have sitting in the shade waiting for me after I’ve run my daily. A water bottle is essential to any runners’ effects. There are many shapes, sizes and colors but they’re all mostly similar. Maybe it’s a little dorky but I even have an 8 oz. bottle that straps to my hand for those particularly long long-runs.
On any given day I’ll drink three or four refills of my bottle. Each time I refill I have a mini meditation session where I take a moment to appreciate the good that water does for me. As I fill my bottle up, I think about how water helps keep me moving and about how I seemingly can never get enough of the stuff. After a run I’ll easily polish off 3/4ths of my bottle without hardly taking a breath in. Off hours, when I’m standing at a water fountain filling my bottle up I feel grateful too that I’m not currently dying of thirst out on a run.
Supposedly you’re not supposed to chug water after a run, but I believe in listening to my body. To tell the truth, if I listened to my body, I’d be going over to the snack mart after a run and buying a Cherry Coke, which is the only thing I’ll crave more than water.
By the way, this coming Monday I’ll be running the Four on the Fourth race in Vinton. I don’t necessarily have a time or place I want to hit; it’s more about seeing what I can do. So, in the next edition of the Training Program look forward to an update on how I ran!