Running with my daughter by smish

Okay so it is time for me to increase my mileage. While running with my daughter has been unbelievable, I have some longer races coming up that will require me to get a bit more serious. I have a 30km race in 4 weeks and my mileage hasn't been over 10km in months. My daughter was with her Dad 2 nights ago so in light of that, I decided to run from my house to there, pick her up and we would both run back together. Sounds like a good idea right? Accomplishes 2 things and as she pointed out, if she was struggling a bit, it wouldn't be a big deal since I would already be a bit tired when I got there.

So I started out, in the deep freeze, my sunglasses too fogged to see out of and my neck warmer quickly freezing over as well. Even so, not too bad because while -18C is cold, there was no wind.  I did the 8.5km over to her Dad's house but made my usual mistake...poor hydration. I have no trouble running 10km without water but forgot that I would be coming back as well. By the time I got to his house, my stomach was cramping and shortly after hitting the 10km mark, on came the hamstring cramps. The run back was excruciating and at this point, it was too late to hydrate with any effectiveness.  The upside? Well, my daughter was feeling quite good so she ran ahead of me for the last half.  She looked like a gazelle!  I think it boosted her confidence to be out in front for once so I think that was worth the cramps!