I decided to join a running group called the Midlothian Mafia. This is an incredibly supportive group of ladies and gents who meet up for early morning runs (track and road) every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. In a moment of pure insanity, I decided to join them for a 3-mile run at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m. Why, you ask? My goal was to make friends, ease my way into the running community, and find some motivation with folks who choose to do this for pure pleasure. Or maybe I thought running with a group named after organized crime would toughen me up? Spoiler: IT DID NOT.

So I rolled out of bed at 5am, scarfed down a piece of toast (bad idea and we’ll get to why in a minute) threw on my sneakers, and showed up – still half-asleep but feeling pretty good. The run started off fine – dare I say I was even enjoying it! Two ladies stuck with me the whole time as we did run/walk intervals. 1 minute of running followed by 30 seconds of walking. Easy enough. Everything was going fine but then, around mile two, it went downhill quite quickly. You know that feeling when your stomach suddenly decides to stage a revolt? Yeah, that was me and the toast I mentioned earlier in the post was bouncing around in my stomach like it had bought a 30-min pass to an ALL-YOU-CAN-JUMP party. Suddenly, the run turned into a “find the nearest bathroom or bush” situation, except there were neither in sight.

Wonderful. My first time running with this group was quickly turning into the biggest regret of my life. Here I am trying to make a good impression and be welcomed into the group and the impression I was about to leave was one of panic and fear mixed with the image of clutching my hands together and praying to God that I could show my face in public again.

I tried to power through, but my stomach was having NONE of it. I had to slow down, walk, and eventually just wave the white flag. Meanwhile, the rest of the Mafia is up ahead, probably wondering where their newest member vanished to. Eventually, they realized they needed to come back and “retrieve” me, which I’m sure was super fun for them. Nothing screams “newbie” like having your entire running group track you down because you’re hobbling along at a snail’s pace, clutching your stomach.

Lesson learned: don’t mess with early morning runs on an empty (or questionable) stomach. Rethink your decision to eat carbs with HIGH FIBER CONTENT before diving headfirst into a summer run with a new group of people.

The Midlothian Mafia may have welcomed me, but my digestive system clearly didn’t get the memo. Next time, I’ll be waking up earlier to, ahem, take care of the issue in advance… and maybe carrying a map of all the nearby bathrooms.

This was me before the run. Look how happy and awkward I look.

And this is me after the fiasco.