Endurance / eating / stomach cramps….HELP!

I’m training for a 24hr event in August so myself and pal did a 10hr training spin last weekend…Crianlarich to Glasgow along the West Highland Way. After 4.5 hours I slowly lost my ability to consume any food & drink. Fluids were in the form of SIS PSP22 @ 8%, food was predominantly a mixture of cereal bars, gels and (here’s the mistake I think) a Soleen malt loaf. Half the malt loaf was eaten at circa 4hrs in when we had a our ‘first’ proper stop. Thereafter things went downhill. Overall, I had more than enough Cals to get me home. For the last 2.5 hours I literally couldn’t stomach anything…not even plain water….I made it home but was a total mess. What can I take food wise which is easier on the tummy / will allow me to continue? Can I train my stomach? Incidentally, fitness wasn’t the issue, I was generally happy with how the rest of my body coped and our pace was better than we’d hoped. 9hrs 39mins total time….7hrs 45min moving.

Any thoughts / advice?

I find SIS very difficult to stomach, and their gels are just as bad. Have you always used their stuff, and not had issues previously?

I find High 5 or Torq far more palatable, but it’s personal.

SIS load their stuff with aspartame as well, which is frankly bizarre for an already sweet product. As above, I far prefer Torq, though mix my own drinks from the raw materials these days. You do need to train your stomach for long periods of riding. Make sure you’re not taking on too much food…and remember to drink enough water to allow you to digest the food. If all fluids were with the PSP22 included, and you were eating a lot as well, you could have been taking on too much.

Short version:
Your stomach is limited to the amount of carboyhdrate it can absorb and put into the blood stream – ~60g of CHO per hour (normal person – untrained stomach). This absorbtion rate is effected by the osmoality of the fluid you insert – 8% is very strong for long races, try dropping to about 6%. Every time you insert solids you are going to slow this process down further.

Shorter version:
You need to train your stomach to deal with it.

Longer version:
Some ranting by me: 24 hours of Exposure – thoughts

You need to train your stomach to deal with it.

How do I train it? Is it as simple as getting out on the bike and eating, or should I also be considering other products?

On the whole, you should be having energy drink OR solid food.

Both together is a bad cocktail. To echo GregMay’s comment, the recommended mix for energy drinks is usually at the limit of what your stomach can absorb. If you put solid food in as well, you’re overloading yourself.

For long unsupported events, I start with 2 bottles of energy drink and then switch to water. For events where I have easy access to energy drink, I do 3/4 hours on energy drink, then an hour of water + real food, then see how I feel. If I feel hungry from there, more solid food + water. If not, more energy drink.

PS don’t get overly worried about sports products. Unless you expect to win the race, mars bars etc. are fine.

How do I train it? Is it as simple as getting out on the bike and eating, or should I also be considering other products?

Just a matter of riding and eating. What goes in is vaugly importatn, but it is just a case of getting it used to the food.

Slight aside – I do a bit of long course tri racing (Ironman and half Ironman) so this is where most of my experience came from before putting it into use with 6/12/24 hr racing. Little different as with tri we are worried about the run more so.

It’s rather simple; go out for a ride with enough carbohydrate for a 4 hr ride. Set CHO load to 60g/hr – find out if it all stays down.
Repeat at 70g/hr
Repeat at 80g/hr
Repeat at 90g/hr

At some point you will want to throw up after about 2 hours….usually around 70/75g /hr.

Step back about 5g/hr – do that for a while (few weeks)
Repeat test. – update numbers -repeat weeks period.

This is the less lab based version – In the labs I’d approach it differently, I’m assuming you don’t have access to one though…so no point.

Note, this is dealing with carbohydrate (CHO) not calories. The intensity you will be racing at will alow for a large amount of calories to still be driven from fat stores, and ingested fat, during the race. However, remember the addage – fat burns in the flame of carbohydrate. Without one, the other is useless.

We could talk about fueling on fat…but a) its going to mean you’re not going to be racing b) when it goes wrong its rather messy c) its not that fun.

PS don’t get overly worried about sports products. Unless you expect to win the race, mars bars etc. are fine.

uurrhghg…yeah… not going to promote any single company…but…the breakdown of sugar type in what you are ingesting also effects the absorbtion rates.

ie, just sucrose < sucrose+fructose < fructose+maltose >lactose >galactose > marsbar

Anyway, Nestle are evil

Double

Anyway, Nestle are evil

Oh yeah.
😉

Note, this is dealing with carbohydrate (CHO) not calories

GregMay…good point. I was keeping a rough tab on Cals, circa 250 / hr, but hadnt considered the CHO aspect. Based on what you’ve outlined, eating half of the soleen malt loaf could have been the killer. It packed a whopping 650cals which I ate in 5mins! From then on, the following phrase became my mantra….dont barf, dont barf, dont barf. The feeling of barfing never went away, although it got way worse when we were climbing (working harder)

We could talk about fueling on fat…but a) its going to mean you’re not going to be racing b) when it goes wrong its rather messy c) its not that fun.

It was b) for me…VERY messy. By the time I got home I was having double vision and was constantly shivering. I still couldnt eat / drink so I slept for 2 hrs and then managed to eat a bowl of cereal. Not to be repeated!

For long unsupported events, I start with 2 bottles of energy drink and then switch to water. For events where I have easy access to energy drink, I do 3/4 hours on energy drink, then an hour of water + real food, then see how I feel. If I feel hungry from there, more solid food + water. If not, more energy drink.

I thought the conventional wisdom was to do the opposite?

Start on just water for the first hour (to encourage the body into burning fat), then move onto solid foods + water, then onto energy drinks once your body get’s to the point it can’t deal with solids anymore?

FWIW I reckoned Jelly Babies were the worst ‘energy’ thing for cramp, at least chcolate gives you something to chew on/taste and let’s you feel full for a while even if it’s not efficient way of taking on energy. Next on my list of things to try are jam sandwiches, but I’ve not figured out how people store them without making a sticky mess!

Aidan’s theory certainly seems to work for him 😉

Are you doing the whole 24 hrs or just 10 ?

Actually my reply is the same, I have won a few endurance races so this comes from experience, but everyone is different.

You shouldn’t be going THAT hard in an endruance race that you can’t digest proper food. I tend to take loads of small things as you never know what you will feel like eating, and I get sick of the sweetness of bars and gels. And if it’s hot you need the salts, I reccommend Greggs sausage rolls (but eat them early esp if it’s hot and they are sitting at the side of the track…)

I thought the conventional wisdom was to do the opposite?

Start on just water for the first hour (to encourage the body into burning fat), then move onto solid foods + water, then onto energy drinks once your body get’s to the point it can’t deal with solids anymore?

Fat will be consumed, while you are active.
But you still need to be active and for that you need to be using your glycogen and carbohydrate.

Hence:
However, remember the addage – fat burns in the flame of carbohydrate. Without one, the other is useless.

Half the malt loaf was eaten at circa 4hrs in when we had a our ‘first’ proper stop

might just be that you ate too much in one go? i would think that is quite a block of food to digest. try eating it in smaller bits over a longer period perhaps?

I suffered from the same thing when doing long rides. I’m not going to advise you on calories and carbohydrate contents as I didn’t pay much attention. What I did is experiment on training rides to find out what I could eat.

I start off with normal food as I can eat this early on in the ride and I find the bulk keeps my stomach settled. Things like wholemeal peanut butter sarnies through to thinks like pork pies (much to the amusement of the Kielder 100 check in team when they did the kit inspection).

I then move onto cereal bars, then energy bars then gels then just drink as the ride progressed.

Drink wise, TORQ is by far and away my favourite in terms of how I react to it.Make your drink less concentrated. I make my TORQ up at 66% recommended. 2 scoopes in a 750ml, not 3. That helped.

As you can see from above I use more energy products towards the end of the ride and they got “lighter” on the stomach to account for my likely stomach problems.

Jelly babies are quite easy to eat. They dissolve in your mouth.

Eat little and often as I found this easier than trying to eat a whole bar. If you are eating one bar an hour you don’t need to eat the whole thing in one go.

Keep drinking, dehydration makes it harder for me to eat.

Work out what you crave. The sweet and sickly energy products get to me after about 6 hours so a packet of mini cheddars or something easy to eat and salty/savoury really helped break the monotony.

My recommmendations for energy stuff is:

Torq drinks
Zipfit chocolate energy bars
High 5 gels

, I reccommend Greggs sausage rolls (but eat them early esp if it’s hot and they are sitting at the side of the track…)

I have to admidt I do make a mean sausage roll….wait…thats the other Greg isnt it, the wrong one with added g.

I would eat whatever I want as the race goes on. Peanut butter sambo being one, other being pasta/pesto/parmasean. Mostly for the taste shift. Discovered Torq vanilla at 24solo and wanter to hug Matt afterwards. Unreal flavour shift.

It all comes down to what YOU can stomach. However, we dont have a situation where we are like a car engine <fuel in/ stomach process = energy out> it is just not like that.

As for jelly babies – well they are a great sugar hit for sure, howevert the resulting insulin spike is liable to screw you over about 20-30mins later and cause further issues. I’d avoid any direct sucrose only insertion unless you are really flagging, or can balance it out with a protein source at the same time to give a slower GI effect.

I thought the conventional wisdom was to do the opposite?

Start on just water for the first hour (to encourage the body into burning fat), then move onto solid foods + water, then onto energy drinks once your body get’s to the point it can’t deal with solids anymore?

FWIW I reckoned Jelly Babies were the worst ‘energy’ thing for cramp, at least chcolate gives you something to chew on/taste and let’s you feel full for a while even if it’s not efficient way of taking on energy. Next on my list of things to try are jam sandwiches, but I’ve not figured out how people store them without making a sticky mess!

Straying off the original topic, but…

The key word in that statement was unsupported. If you want to stop and muck around putting powder into your bottles during an unsupported endurance event, you’re welcome to do that but you will get passed.

I’m going to be carrying water anyway, and if I’m carrying 24 hours or more of food then I might as well have some energy in my first 2 bottles at almost zero cost. Plus, if you can pull out a lead in the first few hours (by not having to faff), you can mess with the heads of the other racers.

Later on, you’re more likely to have difficulty with your stomach. Your body isn’t generally used to taking on calories in energy drinks so your normal mechanisms (like feeling full) can go a bit wrong. Next thing you know, you’re puking up on the side of the trail.

Energy products are great if: You’re already lean; you’re used to using them; you can afford them; and you’re racing hard enough to win.

They are absolutely not necessary and I wouldn’t be surprised if their improper use leads to more problems than they solve.

Eat loads of bananas, and pack loads of bog roll.

Sadly I’m allergic to bananas

When training for, then riding, Tour of Flanders earlier this year I also found that normal foods were the best.

I ate Soreen Malt Loaf before the start, and while on the road ate Bananas, Mixed Nuts, Trail Mix, etc… although all the food at the food stops was sugary stuff which I got really sick of during the event.

SIS does not work for me also (seems to be the case for a few people). I bought a pack of 36 SIS gels and they just make me feel sick both during and after a ride.

High5 however are fine.

Most ‘energy’ foods are sugary sweet and over the course of a long event you’ll get really cheesed off with them (no pun intended!). My advice would be to take some ‘normal’ savoury food with you. Experiment liberally during your training sessions to find what works best for you.

Really interesting read I have torq 12:12 coming up as a pair and hadn’t really thought about any form of fuelling strategy

Really interesting read I have torq 12:12 coming up as a pair and hadn’t really thought about any form of fuelling strategy

Wouldn’t worry about it for pairs so much, you will be resting when you eat. Less weight on bike, fuel in the pits.

I had similar issues after trying almost every energy drink out there. Now I’ m on infinite which is tailored to the individual. It’s a bit more pricey then most but works for me in12 hr races. I found this out via the Dave Buchanan blog as he used it in his 48 record if I recall correctly

Sorry to hear this. I’ve been in this same situation many times and it’s horrible. I’m not a big 24hr soloist or anything but I do quite a lot of long, fast rides (6-9 hours ish) and struggled for ages with nausea from fueling.

It’s surprising how differently everyone’s digestion responds to excercise…as suggested, the best thing is to do a bunch of test rides and try out different fuels yourself. The common factor for everyone is usually the higher intensity you’re working at, the less your stomach will tolerate solids.

For what it’s worth, SIS drink gives me nausea, pretty sure it’s the aspartime too. In fact, if you look at most energy drinks, there’s usually a whole bunch of chemicals that probably shouldn’t be there. I mix my own now and that seems to work much better for me. I usually take 200 cals / hour from drink and 100 from a gel (1 gel per hour – strangely I find the SIS gels fine)

One other thing is to have a really good base of fitness. I have no evidence for this but it really feels like to me that when I have a good base, my body is much better at burning fat for fuel and is much less reliant on the carbs coming in from the stomach, so the stomach gives less gyp.

Re: the maltloaf: Nothing wrong with Soreen. I quite often have maltloaf on long rides. However not at high intensity and not 1/2 at a time washed down with SIS (350 cals for a half, isn’t it?!)

Nothing wrong bar it’ll shut your stomach down if you are doing anything above aerobic threshold….oh wait that is an issue.

It is tasty toasted and buttered mind you.

GregMay: Shame you didn’t make it as far as the 3rd sentence. 😛

Try 4% carb drink. 8% might be pulling water from your body into your stomach.

here comes the science…

http://www.skratchlabs.com/blogs/news/6018756-hydration-science-and-practice