When it comes to exercise & me, there are just a two lame rules that I have to abide by!

1. I cannot eat anything for at least 4 hours before I start running. If I do, I get the worst side cramps.
2. I cannot drink liquids for at least 30 minutes before I run. Even 2 sips of water gave me bad side cramps. I know. So what I do is drink a ton of water at the beginning of the half hour mark and then pee it all out before I go running half an hour later.

I did not discover these things until this year! That would explain ALL of those times when I would dread having to run in P.E. classes. I went through my entire life, dreading P.E. during school. I hated it with a passion. I could have died of happiness when I finished my last year of P.E. in high school. :p I didn’t like physical exertion, but what I hated the most was how badly my sides would hurt when I had to run. No matter how fast or slow I ran, they hurt so badly and I hated it.

Finally, I decided to play around with perhaps my eating and drinking before exercise, and whaddya know? I pinpointed it down to the exact hours that would prevent me from feeling side cramps. I wish I had known that much earlier – I wouldn’t have despised running so much – but I wouldn’t have been able to follow rule number 1 anyways. For some reason, I just had the worst of luck and I remember sometimes I would have P.E. right after lunch. Can you believe that? I always thought it was a crime that they would schedule anybody a P.E. class after lunch.

Now that I’m not actually forced to do any running at a certain time, I can control when I run and time it together with my eating/drinking. It’s a sucky thing because if I don’t plan in advance, I won’t be able to run if I eat even the smallest amount. The good thing is, it kind of controls the fact that I can’t eat junkfood in that time span. :p