Delayed Gastric Emptying

[Pedal Wench]

Hmmm... last week on Ride the Rockies, I had what might have been this situation. Every morning, I would hit the continental breakfast, load up on high-sugar stuff and within 15 minutes be on the road, nauseous, bloated, and just feeling like crap. When I'm home, I usually have a bagel on the drive to my weekend rides, but that's usually 30 minutes before I start riding.

I wonder if this could be my problem. I'm doing another weeklong tour in Colorado in August and was going to experiment with just skipping breakfast and going with my Sustained or Perpeteum bottles instead.

[Wahine]

V - I don't use sustained energy but I might start. I usually use cliff electrolyte drink, shot blocks and accelerade gels. This has always worked well for me until I got strong enough to push into a higher HR faster and stay there. then all of a sudden things stop moving. My plan is to take out the shot blocks, keep the electrolyte drink but dilute it and stick with the gels. I also need to back off a bit for the first 10 miles I think and let myself warm into my pace a little slower maybe. I might try Sustained energy and some other things. I had Heed on the run this weekend and that tastes horrible but worked pretty well. I can go long at a low effort and eat hamburgers.

Kimmyt - the two times this has happened the symptoms became really noticeable at about the 25 to 30 mile point. That would be about when I would start to suffer from the lack of nutrients and fluids. Then I'd become aware of my distended belly because it starts to get uncomfortable every time you try to drink which is exactly what you want to do because you're getting dehydrated etc. The symptoms stay until I can back off enough and long enough to get things moving again. At this last race, it was amazing how quickly that happened. At mile 5 on the run I suddenly started to feel better and within 15 min I had to pee and life was good. At Ironman, I don't think I completely recovered for a week.

[lph]

Hey - it has a name! I've experienced this several times and it's VERY uncomfortable. I chalked the bloating down to too much salt/sodium, since it improved once I switched to just water. Thanks for the info.

[Eden]

So it sounds like the sugars are the culprit? I usually use a sports drink (Cytomax) and a sugar free electrolyte (NUUN). I'm generally fine for anything thats short, but I do a 105 mile road race every year and I've found I tend to get nausea and a feeling I don't want to/can't eat at around mile 75-90. From what I'm reading here, I may need to back off on the Cytomax and hit the NUUN harder. Do you think I need to put more plain water in there too or the electrolytes without the sugar are OK?

[colby]

Sounds a little familiar to my IM experience... but I had no nausea. Felt more like the flu - hot, a little dizzy, strange cold sweat, diarrhea, uncomfortable but not yet cramping. It did take me several days to feel like I could eat like a human again afterward - I did feel some bloating there. I sure am glad I stopped running and at least had the sense to stop consuming for a while. Next time I'll try just water to reset the system faster.

Makes sense... our bodies weren't exactly made to absorb so many liquid calories, especially sugar calories. I just can't stand to eat solid food while exercising, so I guess it's a matter of finding the perfect balance.

[jesvetmed]

Thanks, Wahine.
I had read that somewhere -- I think the gal I ran with this weekend was experiencing this. She said the last several big workouts / races she'd been having troubles. Hmmm... wish I had her email / or even her name!
Jes

[han-grrl]

great article find! thanks

[Wahine]

So it sounds like the sugars are the culprit? I usually use a sports drink (Cytomax) and a sugar free electrolyte (NUUN). I'm generally fine for anything thats short, but I do a 105 mile road race every year and I've found I tend to get nausea and a feeling I don't want to/can't eat at around mile 75-90. From what I'm reading here, I may need to back off on the Cytomax and hit the NUUN harder. Do you think I need to put more plain water in there too or the electrolytes without the sugar are OK?

This is what I found most interesting about the article. It's not necessarily the sugars. I avoid sugars in my fluids too but use electrolytes heavily because I am a very salty sweater. So it turns out that the potassium etc can shut the stomach down too if it's in too high a concentration. So what I'm taking from this is that I need to water down my electrolyte drink more, make sure I take in some plain water with my endurolytes and watch my effort level in the early stages of the ride. Sounds like a similar thing for you. I used to use Cytomax but after a while it started giving me lower intestinal problems.