The Green Girl's intention was to get in a 12 mile run on The Strand after work last night.
I missed my long run over the weekend and well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.
I had hoped to leave the office early but time sensitive issues came up. I didn't have a chance to eat lunch. I'm a snacker so I did manage to have some sunflower seeds, carrot and celery sticks with ranch dressing, an apple, and an orange during the course of the day.
When I arrived at The Strand, I was relieved to see the meters had a five hour limit and I inserted more coins then I've ever used on one of those devices before.
As soon as I started running, pangs of hunger hit me. I devoured an apple sauce and sipped on my sports drink to quiet my stomach.
My legs felt great but I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders so I focused on some deep breathing. I gazed into the sunset and tried to relax.
Darkness had fallen by the time I reached the Hermosa Beach Pier. It was so peaceful running alongside the ocean at night.
Instead of going further, I opted to turn around at the 5 mile point since I figured I could just do an extra mile loop at the end to get me to my desired 12.
Unfortunately, I fell apart around mile 9. The sips of sports drink were no longer quelling the starvation cramps in my stomach. The thought of trying to ingest sports nutrition made me feel nauseous so I skipped the bars and kept running.
Interestingly enough, my body felt great and I know I could have run further than 12 miles had my stomach not been protesting so loudly.
I finally had to give in and cut the run short at around 10.5 miles.
I hit a drive-thru on my way home and got some soda to settle my stomach and a couple of cheeseburgers. After a nice, hot shower, I ate until my stomach stopped hurting.
Lesson learned, this will
not be repeated.
The 
The Green Girl threw her very first 
The Green Girl wishes everyone a very happy Chinese Lunar New Year.
