This whole article sounds like your body telling you to stop doing that to it.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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I had hoped the article would provide more better concrete actions you can take to reduce the problem, because my stomach suffers hard. I gotta go to the toilet before even a casual 10 k recovery run or risk needing to stop my run early.
My one marathon was severely impacted by a sore stomach, though thanks to the pacer being significantly positively split I still hit my target time.
I've done several triathlons of Olympic distance and of roughly 1.5x Olympic distance, and I don't think I've ever once had one where my stomach felt good on the run.
And both marathons and even more so triathlons are such a specific difficult load on your body, it's not really like it's something you can easily test on your average training runs. The combination of intensity and length just doesn't make for good training most of the time. So opportunities to play around with different nutrition etc. to try and find a working solution are so rare.
I always dump out before a race or a long run. Seems like a reasonable precaution
Also switched from those awful energy gels to maple syrup packets. easier on my stomach and i've trained my gut to handle 90+g of carb per hour plus caffeine during races.
The whole conclusion seems to be just try different things which isn't great. I love smoothies before a run because I don't have to chew which seems to help but your results may vary. Also I don't go the same distances so it might not be as calorie dense.
I do know quite a few people who I run with who do full vegan while training and then consume meat products in preparation of their races, during their race and as some recovery days. It is suppose to be great but I have never done it. I don't think its for gut health specifically
Does running in a fasted state have the same gut issues?
Good question. I suspect the answer is that being fasted would help with some of the issues, but possibly not others.
But if we're talking about marathons, going without fuel is gonna create way more other problems (namely: hitting the wall), so it's probably not advisable.
There is a guy who ran 5 marathons in 5 days totally fasted, just to prove it could be done.