Toilet Gags – Part 1
It's supposedly what the English are
good at – Toilet humour, or so I'm told. But it's no joke to be
'caught short' on a long run or in a race. Having talked to a lot of
runners who have suffered from tummy issues I thought I'd give you
some tips in these, 3, blogs.
Many runners, new and old will be
starting training for the London Marathon now as the ballot has just
been announced recently. Some of you may never have run a marathon
and the distance may beginning to feel scary but I'm not here to
remove that particular fear, no, my purpose here is to help you have
a pleasant race in other ways.
OK, so you body has enough fuel stored
(if you've trained and fuelled correctly) for about 90 mins of hard
effort. After that you will have to slow down as you access other
energy systems to continue. The fastest marathon runners in the world
take around 2 hours to complete the distance so your going to need to
'eat' as you run.
You can't realistically stop for a meal
and to be honest you wouldn't want to run after that anyway, although
I do hear stories of Ironman triathletes who seen to have done
exactly that! So what are your options?
- Eating/drinking what is provided by the race organisers
- Taking your own nutrition
- A combination of those two
Whatever you decide to do you must
practise this before your event. If you've never tried Lucozade Sport
or Powerade how do you know that you will be able to stomach it? And
that really gets us back to the point of my blog.
The odd sip or bottle of a sports
drink, to try it out, whilst in the gym or on a short run is no
substitute for using the product on a long run. Your body may behave
and react to it very differently under the stress of the main event.
That means, that if you are planning to use the nutrition provided
during the run you need to find out what it is so that you can
practise. Most race organisers are willing to provide that
information in advance and it is often on the race website or
information pack, do not be scared to ask. You will also need to know
when the product will be provided so you can test if that interval of
x miles between stations works for you.
If you have your own ideas about
nutrition you must train with that and test it too. As any
experienced runner will tell you, 'nothing new on race day'! You do
not want to be in a situation where you're running faster just to get
to the next Portaloo or where you have to ask a local business or
homeowner to let you use their 'facilities'! Believe me, I know, even
with tried and tested strategies I've had to resort to these options
due to other unforeseen circumstances.
So what are you going to practise with,
what are you options there? That will be the subject of Part 2,
coming shortly...
