Unsettled Stomach

Almost everyone run I know has at one time or another experienced some stomach issues. If they were lucky, these issues occurred during a training run rather than a race.

As a runner, avoiding those situations if at all possible always seemed like the soundest approach. We defer eating anything too close to race and watch closely everything that we eat in days leading up to race. Personally, I have a set routine leading up my marathons and try to stick to it as closely as possible.

However, in an article that I was recently reading, a runner took quite the opposite approach. As I was reading it, I totally intrigued by his technique for handling stomach woes.

Like I was saying, I try to avoid these situations.

His approach was to embrace it. He would purposely try to eat foods that would ordinarily turn one's stomach upside down. For example, he would eat nacho just before going out on a run. The result was frequent stops, but that's not all.

The more he did it, the more his body learned to handle it and continue running. I don't have to tell you that usually once a runner's stomach starts rolling downhill, the end is near for any of his or her race ambitions.

But because this guy trained his body to adapt to the very worst, if he had a stomach episode occur on race day, he had learned to better handle it and push through.

I hope my explanation made sense and I didn't ruin anyone afternoon run. As for me, I am not sure if I am a huge advocate of his approach. I know training your body to handle difficult conditions is part of the process. However, I have never purposely set out to sabotage a workout.

Clearly, this would be his intent going into his workout. Maybe it is just my perspective on it.

But in the interest of sharing, I thought I would pass this along to all of my fellow runners. Feel free to try it and let me know your results. LOL.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner