Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with the saying;

an army marches on its stomach

in many ultra races the welfare of your stomach can have more of an impact on your ability to finish than anything else. Over the past few races I’ve been plagued with constant nausea from relatively early stages of the events. It gets really tedious trying to motivate yourself to eat and drink when your stomach is doing its best to deposit whatever you consume via the same tract it went in. Recently I’ve been trying different foods and drink mixes and while the variety has felt better. With the prospect of four 20 plus hour races this summer, I need to find a way through this. I read an article today in Ultrarunning Magazine entitled Nutrition For Your Long Training Runs by Sunny Blende. In it she talks about the importance of planning, practice and timing of your food / liquid intake during training not just races.

Figuring out exactly how many calories and the amount of liquids you are going to consume per hour isn’t going to help - or settle well in your system - if you do not train your gut to accept this amount.

It is often a challenge to work a training run around a convenient supply of food and drink unless you are prepared to carry everything you need. In so many races we are spoilt by the availability of frequent aid stations manned by willing volunteers rushing to provide whatever we need. Yet have often do we consider in advance what is going to be available and more importantly will it sit well in my stomach? For the past two years I’ve run the Wakely Dam 50k, a great race through the Adirondacks that due to the remote location doesn’t have any aid stations. Granted there are opportunities to find water along the way, for those willing to brave the chance of an upset stomach. I on the other hand, prefer to carry a hydration pack that has seems to last the distance. This strategy does put you at the mercy of the weather (the race is held in July) and in 2006, my supplies were empty several miles from the finish even though it poured with rain the entire way! However, last year, in cooler conditions, I fared much better. The experience from this race has though, made me realize that reliance on aid stations isn’t as important as you might think. It is the content and frequency of intake that is much more significant.

I’m now much more comfortable about heading out on long runs carrying everything I think I’ll need. My goal is to maintain a regular intake using my watch to countdown 15 minute intervals. Maintaining a strict intake schedule seems to work the best, but while I used to stick with a small range of foods, I’m also now making sure I use much more variety.

There are only some many energy bars I can tollerate in a single day before the mere sight of them makes me cringe!