Hi Cara,
Not sure if this applies to you, but for me, stomach issues are always about inadequate hydration. They never start if I manage to stay hydrated, but once I get behind, the stomach is the first thing that shuts down. Personally I rarely touch water in races (makes my stomach slosh). I prefer to stick with fluids with electrolytes...that also probably helps keeps things moving through the GI tract. If it's a really hot day, I usually start seeing stomach related problems by mile 14 in training, but rarely in racing since I am a hydration fanatic with all of those great aid stations. The other possibility is the supplements you are using, but you would likely see problems with those in training if that were the case.
My two cents. Hope it helps!

Stomach cramps is THE single biggest problem in my racing and I've tried everything and I think I figured out what works for ME. The difference is that for me the problem is more dominant on short-fast races.

This is a very loaded question an I would need much more info to help more specific but here are some tips that might ring a bell:

- maybe you eat too much for the given intensity. With that I mean, that your stomach will be able to absorb a certain amount of calories per hour, which will very with heat, salt, humidity, race-intensity, position on your bike and many more little things that are hard to determine. If you put more into your stomach it will accumulate and the longer a race the more likely it will shut down at some point and you're done. If you are training your nutrition on lower intensity (which you almost always do) than in a race (the same effort seems easier on race day) you might be able to absorb it but at race intensity you're filling up your stomach.

What I do: I'm 170lbs and go pretty hard (for my abilities) during IM races and I take 400cal/h on the bike and 250-300 on the run. 100 from Accelerade and the rest from GU-gel, in addition I take 1l of water/ hour.

That's an average, if it's cold and wet, I take more Gu and less water, if it's hot and dry, I take less gu and more water and if it's really hot I supplement with salt-tablets. If it feels liquid in my stomach on the bike I take some banana to suck it up, not for calories, just to have something solid in there.

Now you have to adapt this to your weight, race intensity and so on ...meaning you have to tune it in yourself...I know that doesn't help much but I'm affraid it's the only way.

- working your abs might help: I know it sounds silly but having strong abs and lower-back muscles helps me to prevent stomach problems, hey it works for me, it might work for you.

- you possition on the bike might be too tight on your stomach, so you don't have a problem on long runs but if you hammer the bike first ...

- hammer gel contains proteins, some people just can't take it others think it's the new holy grail of endurance nutrition, play with it!

I could keep going for hours but I don't think it would be any more helpfull.

Congrat's on finishing Muncie. From personal experience only...It starts with achy-gut and if continuing to push whatever on achy-gut you get slosh-gut. Getting stuff through the gut is a balance between pace, conditions, type of cho, amount of cho, fluid, and electrolytes. Any one of those or a combination can lead to absorbtion problems. I start getting a little achy first, if I push anything on top of that for long enough and I'll get slosh-gut. Achy-gut fix, modify the pace, take water only, and bump-up the electrolytes, E-Caps for me. It will take 10-15-20 mins to turn it around. Reintroduce regular nutrition slowly. Slosh-gut fix: Take only enough water to get the electrolytes in. I've just about eliminated the slosh-gut, but the last time it happened it took 30-35 minutes to fix using that method.

Preventative measures: I've recently cut way back on the simple-sugars in training-racing. Recent discussion with Carbo-Pro folks suggested that one contributing problem to GI distress may be the accumulation of simple sugars in the gut over a long day. Something to think about. You didn't mention taking any additional electrolytes, I'd wonder about that. As a general rule CHO intake ought to be about 1gm/kg of wieght/hr. Fluid intake is so varied but can be figured out by calculating your sweat rate during training and over time you can get fairly close about predicting what you'll need. Electrolyte needs are established through experimentation. Sounds like you've got to up your training intensity to leverage the fueling problems if the latter is only showing up in racing. You can figure this out! My $.02.

You described the exact problem I was having. And you have a similar combination that I was using. I talked to the folks at Hammer Gel and they told me DO NOT mix Hammer Gel and Gatorade. Apparently the mix of simple sugars (Gatorade) and complex sugar (Hammer Gel) will most likely lead to cramps and (as I found out the hard way) severe gas. Per the HG folks, if you use hammer gel, drink only water with it, or on the bike, (or if you use a Fuel Belt) pre-mix hammer gel with water for your own sports drink. So far this has worked for me. Good luck and great job on your 1/2 IM.

I had a very bad time last year in the Lubbock 1/2, very similar to what happened to you. Everything was perfect this year. Two major differences, I switched from Accelerade to GPush. There's nothing wrong with Accelerade, but personally I cannot process any protein during a race.

The second change, and the most important, I drank no gatorade until I was very far into the run. Check out the IM nutrition article on this site for a well written piece describing osmotic pressure and the principles you need to understand. Basically, I had too rich of a fuel mixture and my stomach shut down.

I agree with Chris in Balto, Don't mix HammerGel with Gatorade or simple sugars. You can, however, use it to make your own drink as Chris mentioned per Hammer or with complex carohydrates. I use Orange flavor Ultima replenisher. It's great as I'm using an Atkins controlled carb diet and it has only 9g of carbohydrates. Seem too low? That's because Ultima is designed to be used with gels. This told to me by the Ultima rep at the Calif. Int. Marathon expo. Good stuff.

Here's a statement from the Ultima web site at http://www.ultimareplenisher.com/faq/ -

Can you mix Ultima Replenisher with gel products?
Yes, you can. Ultima Replenisher is presently the only product on the market that is 100% compatible with all gel products. Because Ultima Replenisher and the various gel products all contain complex carbohydrates, they are safe to use with one another. Drinks that are all simple sugars, or high in simple sugars are not compatible with the gel products as complex carbohydrates and simple sugars do not combine well in the GI tract. This incompatibility can lead to an upset stomach or serious GI distress.

I've yet to use them myself, but I'm going to start using Hammer Nutrition's Endurolytes. You should definitly give them a try.

Same with me, Accelerade absolutely kills my gut, GPush doesn't. I don't know why. I tried going back to Accelerade several times, because it is easy to find and GPush is difficult to get, but I felt more stupid each time I had to stop riding because of gastrointestinal pain associated with Accelerade. I really like the way Accelerade tastes and wish I could use it. I don't know if it is the protein causing the problem, I can use Endurox post-activity without any problems. Anyway, GI maladjustment is a real race killer, and must be solved in order to race your best, and there certainly seems to be a great variety of successful strategies between individuals.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

Thanks everyone for the replies! I guess I have several directions I can go now. I probably needed to drink more plain water on the bike, and take in more electrolytes. I love the Hammer Gel, but I didn't realize it had no electrolytes. I just kind of assumed it did so I though I was doing great with taking enough electrolytes...must have confused it with something else. Also, I did not exactly take the gel with Gatorade, but I did have gatorade within a mile or two of taking gel. That might not have helped either. I recently ordered 2 more kinds of drinks, Gu2O and Endurox. I got them the week before the race, so I didn't use them, but I can experiment now.

I think whoever said something about eating too much for the intensity that day probably had a point, too. I feel like I train pretty hard, but I never really go all out like in a race, so I was probably not used to eating so much while working so hard.

Thanks again for the advice!