Yesterday I ran 18 miles successfully except for one major issue - stomach cramps. When I trained for previous marathons and half marathons this was a minor problem that occured without a great deal of frequency. This time however I am plagued by stomach issues and it has become a huge inconvenience.
What typically happens is no more than 30 minutes into the run my stomach will start feeling upset and cramping. It is hardly noticable at first and will go away after a few minutes. Then it comes back, worse than before, and goes away again. This happens continually, waves come and go with increasing pain. By the end of the run I will have stopped and doubled over a couple of times, doing lamaze style breathing until it subsides and then I go on. Even if I stop to use a bathroom, I wont be able to get any relief until I am done running. What results is a mad rush home with really bad cramps the entire way. I will take several trips to the bathroom for the next few hours and then I am ok.
It is very frustrating to me that aside from this, I am running really well. I somehow misread my training schedule and skipped over a week so I went from 14 miles to 18 miles sooner than I should have, and I was still good except for my stomach.
Reading up on the problem it seems that 60% of runners experience varying degrees of nausea and unpleasant stomach issues while they run. The problems are said to be caused, in part, because blood is diverted from the GI tract to the muscles during exercise. The diversion of blood can cause cramping and limit the body's ability to to absorb fluids potentially leading to dehydration. This is worse for runners because the high impact running has on the body jostles the GI tract resulting in a very sped up digestive system.
Factors susch as the amount of bacteria in the stomach, digestive time, hormone and stress levels as well as pre-existing conditions such as lactose intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome influence how effected some runners can be by this. The answer it seems is to experiment with your diet to see what works and what doesnt.
I have always had wheat toast with penaut butter before a long run but the fiber in the toast and the fat in the peanut butter may now be bothering me. They also suggest avoiding dairy products for 24 hours before a long run which I can try and eating three hours before you run. Well eating 3 hours before I run is just not going to happen because I would have to eat breakfast at 4:30AM. They also reccomend refined white foods like regular pasta, white rice, and plain bagels - all food I avoid because wheat is supposed to be better for you. One or two meals of this a week can't hurt so I am willing to give it a try. Since this doesnt happen as severly with my shorter weekday runs I wont have to adsjust my diet too much. I am also going to drink ginger tea before my long runs to hopefully settle my stomach. At this point I am willing to try anything. I have (2) 20 milers coming up and then I start tapering so I am almost at my training peak so now is when I need to find the solution.
1 comment:
That sounds tortuous. I hope you figure out how to avoid it.
Post a Comment