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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Food and Fuel

I have such a hard time with food when I'm running.  Today was the worst running experience I've had in a long time.  Not because my legs hurt.  Not because my lungs hurt.  But because I wanted to throw my lunch up the whole time!!

I normally take one of two runs.  In the morning sans any fuel.  Get up and go.  It's hard work but it gets done.  The other run is after I work.  I take a break and eat my lunch at around 10:30am so when after I've picked up my kids from school and get started on my run I've had at least 5.5 hours for the food to settle.  These runs are usually my best runs.  They are in the afternoon and I'm completely fueled up.  Perfect!

Today I ate lunch at 12:30.  I had a small cup of corn chowder and a petite bistro salad (Thank you Mimi's Cafe!).  I don't think that is heavy at all!  Then I started my run just before 3.  By the end of mile 1 my stomach was rebelling.  By the end of mile 2 I had cold sweats and it was taking everything in me not to throw up.  I got off.  Came back upstairs, drank some water, sat under the fan and started to feel much better.  I waited a bit longer and then went back down to get the last 4 of the 6 miles I was required to do today done.  The first (third at this point) was just OK.  By mile 2 I was queasy again.  I pushed myself to get through and finish the third mile.  Then that was it.  I walked my last mile outside. 

What does a girl do??

So 5 hours is perfect.  2 hours is awful.  There has to be a happy medium.  I don't want to be doing my Sunday long runs on an empty stomach.  But then we go to church and I'm hungry after church.  I also don't want to wait until dinner time to do my long run.  I'm going to have to experiment with this one a bit I guess.  The half is obviously 13.1 miles...I can't do that on an empty stomach.  But the way things look now I may have to wake up at 3am just to eat something then try to sleep a bit more and hope that fuel works for the race.  Hmmmm

Suggestions??

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