Fourth milestone: postponed

Today was supposed to be my big 30K milestone. I went as far as 21.95 kilometers (13.64 miles) and had to stop. My left LCL seized up again, but unlike my 25K two weeks ago, today it decided to seize up during the run. It started cramping around 12 miles in. Then on one part of the trail I was faced with a moderate downhill. When I found myself unable to control my descent, I realized it was time to stop.

There were too many things that conspired to do me in today:

• I'm visiting my family this weekend in Southern California. The weather here is a lot drier than I'm used to.
• I'd driven down early Friday morning on only three hours of sleep. I was so tired during the day on Friday that I missed waking up this morning when I'd planned to. Instead of waking up at 6, I woke up at 7:40 and didn't get out on the trail until close to 9 o'clock. It was almost noon when I stopped and it was very warm already.
• Running late made me cut my 8-mile break short (about two minutes).
• I ran the Santa Ana River Trail from Corona to Anaheim. Although it's relatively flat, it has very little shade. I ended up on an unpaved section of trail at about mile 8 as I didn't know to cross the bridge at Imperial Highway to continue on pavement. It was pretty hard on my feet. Going back, I ran on the left side of the river. Since the river doubles as a flood-control channel, the trail was slanting down toward the right. So as much as I tried to fight it, I could feel my left foot starting to pronate with each step and stressing my LCL even more.
• Running without my weekly buddies, I had no aid stations along the way. I was probably so focused on not running out of fluids that I didn't drink enough, even though I was fully hydrated at the start of the run.

In hindsight, once I woke up and found myself running late, I should've postponed the run 'til Sunday. It was frustrating more than anything because when I stopped I wasn't even tired. I know I could've finished psychologically and with all the calories I stored up, if my body had just cooperated.

So now I'm short one long-distance run to bridge the training gap between 25K and 21 miles. What am I going to do? I'll have to brace my knee next Saturday to see if it will help, plus use my newer shoes which should be broken in by then. I know if I could just get my left knee to agree with what I'm doing, I could go much further than I did today.