to caffeinate or not to caffeinate.

I’ve become a bit of a coffee drinker in the past few months. I feel so guilty! I don’t know if it’s working with kids again (or just working in general again), but sometimes coffee just seems to be the only thing that gets me through the day. I try to stick with the little instant coffee packs that go in the miniature cups at my school (unfortunately, instant coffee is the Korean way…), and occasionally I go to the local convenience store and get a little iced latte from the refrigerated section (it’s even in the shape of coffee to-go cup), but every once in awhile, I give in and splurge on the enormously high-priced iced latte from a proper coffee shop. However, yesterday I had a revelation as I spent a whopping $5 on a starbucks iced mocha—it’s not worth it! I don’t know if I’ve become Koreanized on the coffee side of things, but when did coffee shops start making such terrible coffee? It felt like work getting down my mocha yesterday and it occurred to me that something so small for so much money shouldn’t be so much work to get down. Maybe it’s time I buckle down, realize that caffeine may be part of my life now, and buy a coffee maker. Then if it tastes like dirt, I have only myself to blame.

Yesterday on my run I had a runner’s worst nightmare: about 5 minutes in, I felt a little gurgle in my gut, and then a cramp in my side, and suddenly I realized that I didn’t find a toilet in about 30 seconds, I would have wished I’d brought an extra pair of shorts. I found a toilet just in time, but clearly didn’t get the job done because the last 20 minutes of my run consisted of me practically sprinting for home. Kristin (my friend who is doing the half with me—hooray!) had the same problem this week, and we’ve decided to do some serious research as to how to prevent this from happening on race day. Are bananas supposed to help that sort of thing? I think me shoving a fiber one bar in my face right before my run may have had something to do with it. I’ve discovered that 35% of your daily fiber in a little bar is only a great thing when you’ve got a toilet nearby.