How does the run go? The feeling continues or you bounce back with a little rest? I am going to assume from the 24 hours of gas and bloat that the run isn't fun.

It definitely sounds like you are shutting down the digestion and then allowing that sugar to ferment in the belly. Blah.

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Ian

Bounce back with a little rest. Well, I can only rest after the race is over, so it's just a guess. Past races where this happens, I'm redlining it to either beat a buddy or beat a PR. After the finish line, I get my brain back pretty quick.

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You have given incomplete information. How many cal/hr? How much, how fast, and what are you drinking? How much do you sweat? How hot was it?

WAG: you're dehydrated and instead of drinking, you're eating crap (possibly at a rate that's too fast) that's rotting your gut, further robbing other parts of your body the water it needs. So eat less, drink more would be my first thought.

How much nutrition training (workouts at pace and duration) are you doing? For that matter, how sure are you that this is a nutrition problem, and not insufficient training? -J

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

Definitely not a training or not enough hydration issue, but yeah, could be too much sugar to hydration ratio. And HR is 10 beats higher (from trying to go even faster) than previous year where nutrition worked fine and had a great race.

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I had a similar high eart rate issue. I think I too consumed too much sugar and/or not enough water ot balance it. I suffered... really bad with GI issues. HR was so high on the biek I thought it was malfunctioning and i ignored it and rode by feel. It was 165-170... when I had trained for 145-150.

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TrainingBible Coaching
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I had a long string of bad runs at the 70.3 distance until I got my bike pacing right and I found what drink works for me.

I came from cycling and figured that it was my strength so I raced that and figured I would just be able to run easy after that. What happened was near what you describe, my stomach was upset sometimes to the point of really hurting, I would bonk then have to walk.

Probably the most important thing I did was get my bike pacing under control, using a power meter helped me do that. I figured that I was probably riding near 90% and while I was feeling OK on the bike I most likely wasn't digesting the gels I was taking in.
With better pacing I was able to eat, digest and go into the run in good shape.

The next mistake I was making was over-drinking at the end of the bike ride. I would notice about half way through that I didn't drink as much as I planned and tried to make up for it by putting down a bottle of drink in the last 15 miles. That would result in having a slushy stomach going into the run. Because of that anything I ate was just sitting in my stomach.

Another mistake I made was eating too much too late the day before. I will always try to eat by 5pm the day before so I can make sure I was "emptied out" race morning. I also will only eat calorie dense foods on race morning so there is no bulk in my system. Calorie dense foods I like are Pop Tarts and Power Bars.

The last thing that most likely gave me problems was that I was drinking the old Gatorade, this was before the G2 came out. I started drinking Infinit hot weather formula in 2008 and it seemed to settle my stomach after a rough swim. I now drink the G2 and it works well for me and is fairly cheap.

A way I got a good sense of pacing was doing the Gordo HIM brick of:
45 min run at M pace
2:30 bike at HIM pace
45 min run at M pace

If the second run isn't as good of quality as the first I looked at pacing and nutrition and adjusted as necessary. I probably did that workout 4 times before I got it right.

I hope at least some of this can help you too.

jaretj

Definitely not a training or not enough hydration issue, but yeah, could be too much sugar to hydration ratio. And HR is 10 beats higher (from trying to go even faster) than previous year where nutrition worked fine and had a great race.

You may be making false assumptions based off of the great race you had earlier. We don't really understand how our bodies work and so there are times when we have great races and we think we know why but we come away with the wrong conclusion. In my PR half-ironman, I drank something like 40 ounces of water--total--and had maybe 200-300 calories on the bike and none on the run. I had a solid ride and ran by far my best half-marathon that day. Since then I have tried to duplicate that effort with similar eating and drinking and never come close with a number of bonks that sound very much like yours. Again, without knowing exactly why, I suspect that I was really solid for that race because I had spent the summer riding with a buddy on the weekends and I did a lot of 5-6 hours rides. My body was super-efficient at taking in calories and water in hot conditions so on race day in the cool of NorCal I was flying.

I know you are sure it is not a fitness issue, but sometimes we like to think that nutrition is to blame when it really isn't. Sometimes we think we have done everything exactly the same, but no two situations can be perfectly duplicated. If they could, the most talented, best-trained athlete would win the tri every time and that does not happen. We are not machines.
Chad

Sometimes you need more than just carbohydrates to give you energy and Electrolytes. Your body is lacking something. Look into a pre work out formula without Caffeine that has amino acids. CNP Performance has a great Pre Workout called Pro GF it has many amino acids that will help you stay focused and give you the nutrients you body needs to keep pushing. The goal to push at 100% for a longer period of time. www.cnpperformance.com

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James Ernster
CNP Performance
Because it works

Hey, thanks for that. Really helpful!

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What I mean by 100% is a pace that you can maintain for the entire race. Basically you need more to feed the muscle than just carbs and Electrolytes

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James Ernster
CNP Performance
Because it works

I have been doing some resuarch and have found out that there are many many case where people will get lightheaded and stomach pain. Some people have tried a high carbohydrate product that contains protein. But you have to make sure the carb source is complex like maltodexrin or dextrose. You will also want a blended protein to help feed the muscle slowly over time. Check out ProPeptide MBF. Just something to think about good luck and if you need anything we are here for you. I hope you find something that helps.
James Ernster
CNP Performance

It is not clear why you feel you should be able to go faster. Thinkin gyou should be able to is not going to do it.

More or less: 4-5 hours burning 7-900 calories/hr. You do not eat enough.

You need to find food that will work for you.

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Years ago. Bicyclists could take a 5 minute break every couple hours and consume 44oz sugared pop, a couple of those fruit pies - well over what people consume now, and then hit it hard for the next 2 hours. Runners tended to drink more - orange juice, honey, and bananas made the drink of choice for some. But again a lot more than people consume now.

Your digestive system needs training.

But you are not going to get do better than the normal slow down associated with longer periods of time.

I'd second the idea to look at yr bike pacing. I train with a power meter and use that for a goal on race day. BUT, if the HR gets too high I will back off. So it's a power goal with a heart rate limit. In your good outcome you may have paced better, digested better, and thus had plenty of fuel in the tank for the run.

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Brian
“Eat and Drink, spin the legs and you’re going to effin push (today).” A Howe

I've had similar experiences at half-iron and full ironman distances. Wish I could say I have your answer, but it is a complex challenge with lots of variables. My search has led me toward understanding osmolality as a primarly factor in carb processing, along with intensity/pacing as others commented. So I'm trying to find the right combination of sugar type, dilution/water consumption, electrolyte balance that allows me to sustain the higher intensity without stomach shut-down. Appears to be an individual thing, and tough to truly replicate even in long workouts for some reason. Good luck in your search.

I am just going to chime in for posterity sake & to provide clarification for everyone who is reading this thread. There are a few corrections in some of the posts above, but some fall into a gray area...what I noted below is black/white with no room for interpretation.

From the post above: you have to make sure the carb source is complex like maltodextrin or dextrose.


Sounds like an accurate statement...right?

The only problem is that this statement is completely incorrect. Dextrose is a monosaccharide (simple) & maltodextrin a disaccharide (complex).

If anything else needs clarification, please let me know ;-)

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Brian Shea
http://www.PersonalBestNutrition.com
Open-Water/Masters Swimming at the Jersey Shore:
Monmouth County NJ Ocean Swim/Masters Workouts

you're not listening. you were dehydrated, you were going to hard for the stress you were putting on your stomach.

Eat less.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I think you/we really need to understand your training speed and volume in relation to race day effort before we jump to the conclusion that it's a nutrition issue.

More often than not, it's actually a training issue, not a nutrition one. If you go faster than your ability on race day, you'll 'bonk/crash' at long distance races no matter what. It doesn't just manifest as legs not going as fast as you like - at those multihour races, you might get generally weak, nauseous, and other not-so-obvious symptoms from pushing your overall system well past its limits for prolonged periods.

That and the fact that more volume in training = better fat burning for long distance energy efficiency. I don't think anyone will dispute that Macca would destroy pretty much any AGer here at 70.3 even if he took zero calories throughout the entire race, and could probably still crush everyone even if he limited his water intake to suboptimal levels. It's not like take away a few gels, and all of a sudden he's bonked out on the side of the road.

Brian you are correct I apologize for the over site not sure I was thinking there thank you for clearing that up. James

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James Ernster
CNP Performance
Because it works

Brett, I'm gonna go with what to me are classic symptoms of dehydration. Don't over think this IMO. My educated guess is you are taking in too much sugar relative to water. This creates an osmality issue in your stomach. Your stomach then needs to draw water from your body to dilute the mixture so it can be absorbed. This causes cramps and can lead to dehydration. The light headed feeling may be a drop in BP from low fluid volume.

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"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude

That makes the most sense. I know bonking (very well), I know cramping, I know undertrained, and this bizarre head-in-cotton feeling is unlike any of those. BP being off would explain it. I'll look into that. Thanks!

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
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