Another Daily Mile DailyMission:

What’s the worst mistake you’ve made during a race?

Well, if you’ve read my blog for long you’ll know that I go out too hard on race day, though I’ve gotten better with that!  That is consistently a bad mistake. Probably the single worst mistake I’ve made was not going back to pick up a cup of water after I’d dropped mine.

During the Annual Fourth of July Chesterfield 10K I grabbed a cup off the table and somehow managed to drop it before actually getting anything into my mouth.  Oops, no big deal.  Why waste 10 seconds to go back and grab another cup, the race was over half way over and I was scooting along.  BIG DEAL, on a typical hot Indiana Independence Day I soon suffered from a lack of proper hydration.  I can’t be certain how much time was actually lost to my dehydration, but I’m sure it was more than 10 seconds.   It was this same race day that the first water stop wasn’t setup yet so that compounded my mistake of not stopping for water at the second station.

I can’t remember for sure but I think this was the 2006 running of the 10k.  Lesson learned.