IM Nutrition - why was I puking?

Triathlon Forum
1

I was on a training ride earlier today - targeting 120 miles or so. I only made it to 117…

The course was two loops, and there were sections where I intentionally increased my tempo to see what it would do. The first time through I felt great - I had taken slightly less than 50% of the perpetuem concentrate I had, and finished off a good amount of water.

The second time around I actually negative split most of the course, which is something that I had tried to do. At mile 93, we stopped for fuel, and I had a coke, a serving of perpetuem, an endurolyte (it was 94 degrees), and some water. Right after that we went out on a six mile gentle hill, then through some more rollers, and finally to 112 miles in well under 6 hours - which was pretty good for a training ride.

Well, right after that I started to feel sick. A couple miles later we stopped under a bridge and I got off the bike and tried to pull myself together, but I still felt like I was going to hurl. After a few more miles, it was just unbearable, so I stopped on some grass under a tree and tried to rest. After 15 minutes there, and some more coke, I sat up, and immediately hurled - not a lot, but enough… I still wasn’t feeling any better, though.

My riding buddy came back with the truck to haul my sorry ass off, and immediately after loading the car, I hurled huge - I’m talking a ton of fluid. I put Natasha Badmann’s performance at Ironman to shame. Immediately I started feeling better, within an hour I was eating again, and now, 5 hours later, I feel fine.

So nutrition people, what the hell happened? Did the coke do me in? Should I have had some solid food out there? Was it because of the heat? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks,

John

PS- if you are in the Alamo, CA area, avoid the grass near the Shell station at Stone Valley and San Ramon Valley Road…

2

JohnA,

I’m no expert or trained medical person. But what you experienced sounds a lot like what I went through on a long hot ride once.

I have bonked before, but one doesn’t recover from a bonk so quickly and feel fine after just 5 hours.

We were on a 230 mile marathon ride and the temperature was high 80’s and so was the humidity. I tried to eat and especially drink enough to keep up with my sweating so I would not get dehydrated. We were riding hard and fast and I began to get cooked. I didn’t want to put anything in my stomach, solid or liquid.

We stopped for a lunch break just past the half way point. I tried to eat but I couldn’t. I tried to drink but struggled with that too. I felt like quitting, but one of my friends said he would try to help me get through it if I could and that if I wanted to quit anytime after we resumed I could. So I tried.

After about 25 or 30 more miles I started to get sick to my stomach. I began to feel like I wanted to vomit. I felt like doing that would make me feel better. But there was almost nothing in there. Mostly dry heaves. But I did feel a little better and resumed riding again.

After another 15-20 miles the road started to go uphill, but my tank seemed empty. I just fell off the back and couldn’t do anything but creep up the slight hill. At that point I gave up realizing that to try and go further would just hold everyone else back. I thought that one of our sag vehicles could help revive me and maybe I could resume riding. I was only about 50 miles from finishing the ride.

But the sag wagon was the one without any of my stuff and no one else had put anything on board for such a contingency. When we finally stopped at a convenience store, I bought 4 cans of pop and inhaled them. Started to feel a lot better real fast. But I didn’t have any urge to pee afterward.

It sounds like you probably just got yourself too dehydrated, whether you realized it or not. As this condition progresses, and one tries to reverse it, it is usually too late to be effective. When you try to fill your stomach with what you know you need to put in there, its almost as if your stomach is revolting against you. It doesn’t want anything in there. If you do manage to get something in there. It doesn’t want to digest it and may even want to expel (hurl) it. Finding some kind of liquid (coke, sprite, ginger ale, etc) that the stomach will tolerate seems to reverse this condition remarkably quickly.

Another time I did a ride during which time the heat index rose to reach 110. Got sick again, threw up, etc.
Got some cold liquids in me and kept them down. Slept for about an hour and was feeling pretty chipper again.

It sounds like your just learning the hard way about your body and dehydration. If you perspire a lot, you need to watch your electrolyte balance too. Might just be time to study up on the subject.

3

i’m no nutrition expert, but it sounds like dehydration to me. how much water were you getting down exactly?

4

I would guess that you were feeling the opposite of dehydration…hyponatremia. This happens when the blood sodium concentration gets too low, i.e. over-hyrated. It’s hard to think of being over hydrated, but if you’re sweating alot, and not replacing all of the salt, pretty soo all of the fluids you’re taking in are too dilute for your body to absorb. Your body needs the salt to absorb the water, so both are just as important.

When you get dehydrated, you usually get headaches, etc, and it doesn’t sound like you were guzzling fluids enough to make yourself throw up from volume. One endurolyte? you said it was 94 degrees, at that temp you should be taking one endurolyte every 30 min (based on your personal sweat rate, but this is a good place to start). The good thing is, you found this stuffout on a training ride, and now have the opportunity to fix it before race day. Start drinking more electolyte based drinks and less water.

5

Tough call. With that much accumulation in the gut it could have been hyponatremia as Tommy suggested – hot day, pushing the pace, not enough sodium intake. The problem with this dx is your fairly quick recovery. Hyponatremia typically requires a longer recovery time, but based on the symptoms I would lean towards hyponatremia. Dehydration, if you believe Noakes, is a problem that can be overcome relatively quickly. I’m going to assume that you started getting that slosh-gut feeling, but continued to take fluids (?). If you get slosh gut the only fix I’ve been able to work is to back off pace and up the sodium with only enough fluids to get the tabs down. Puking with slosh gut, a slower pace, and restarting the process fresh so to speak is also a fix, which is about what you did.

6

Maybe!!! The contents of your stomach got hot and slowed absorption. It happen to me and coke was involved. Also pushing the second lap in that heat could have been a major player.

Were you on a on an eating schedule? It really helps to have a plan.

Remember the IM and Natasha

7

Here’s a bit more info on the plan.

I carried only water and a concentrate of perpetuem. I had 72 oz. of water each lap, roughly 24 oz. per hour. I was taking endurolytes every hour on the first lap, every 30 minutes on the second. I also took perpetuem every 30 minutes and washed it down with water. I felt fantastic all the way to mile 112 - OK, my legs were a bit spent, and it was really hot, but I felt OK. Popped 2 amino acids per hour as well.

When the wheels came off, they came off quick, but my recovery was pretty quick, too - once I hurled. I have gotten dehydrated, and usually I get abdominal cramps first, this felt like something different.

The thing I keep coming back to is the coke. It was the one thing that was off plan…

Thanks for the input.

John

8

i think it may have been the coke too. sugar in coke is too highly concentrated for your gut to empty it fast enough. you certainly would have had a problem keeping it down. plus all the other stuff you were taking in (what’s perpeteum???) may have raised the osmolarity of your gut contents too high as well. protein (as in the amino acids you took), depending on who you believe, is also hard to empty from the gut. the osmolarity of what you take in has to be diluted and this is the reason it’s recommended to wash down GUs/gels/bars with pure water.

Kim

9

Just a guess but I still think your stomach contents got hot and absorption s–l—o—w—e—d. Why ?heck it happens to everyone at times even the pro’s. I bet that extra speed on the second lap may have had something to do with it.

10

I would tend to agree. Unless you are consuming a lot of sodium, and maybe a little potassium, you will become hyponatremic. Your symptoms sound more like that. The problem I have encountered with the Protein based supplements, is that they are harder to absorb. Also high sugar content fluids are harder to absorb. Pedialyte is much easier to absorb. The glucose to sodium ratio activates your sodium-patassium-ATPase pump and actively pumps it in. The only problem is that the sugar replacement is low for energy restoration.

11

John,

To say you hurled does not give it proper credit. I haven’t seen anybody blow that hard since a Chico State frat party where a guy attempted to do a six pack beer bong. It was like the Barf-O-Rama in the movie Stand By Me. Very impressive!

I would guess there were a number of contributing factors to your downfall. After you went hard you would wait for me. The go hard and stop probably wasn’t good on the system. It was the hottest day of the year, 96 degrees. There was also a nearly 40 degree temp change from the start to the finish of the ride. The water and endurolytes only hydration combo may not have been enough. I would go back to Accelerade or some other drink mix supplemented by the endurolytes. The coke at 90 miles may have complicated things. Better to find this out now and not in CDA.

Dave

12

Well hell, thaks for inviting me along boys! :wink:

clm

13

Cathy,

Thought you would be at Wildflower.

Dave

14

Thought you would be at Wildflower.<<

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

No. I don’t camp. :wink: