Saturday, September 9, 2006

Failure is the option

On my Sunday ride one of my goals is to give myself an upset stomach from too much liquid calories, conflicting forms of glucose competing for absorbtion.

Why the hell would I want to purposefully try to through my GI into distress?

Because you have to train the way you would race and I don't know what Ironman Florida is going to throw at me. What will the salt water do to my stomach when I drink it during the swim? What if I drink to much water in T1 to get the taste out of my mouth and screw myself up on the bike leg? How will I combat an upset stomach on the bike or run?

I am currently reading a book of essays on ultra-marathons. This is not so much for the respect of the distance(s) but to read how people channel their energys for 24 to 48 hours at time, almost all that time spent alone in the woods running towards the finish line, the time cut off or against the elements. For me its mental preperation my personal mental struggles on the ironman course.

Anyway...a little nugget that popped out was that crystalized ginger root helps calm an upset stomach while on the run.

My plan is that towards the middle of my 100K tomorrow to overload my stomach with sugar (candy bars and gatorade probably) and then when the problems hit, chew up the crystalized ginger and see first if it works and second how much I need and third how long does it last.

Gee, let me think. Purposefully sabotage myself with candy bars in order to see if I can cure myself with something else. Either I am either going to be really happy or home early. Either way not a bad proposition.

5 comments:

Rainbow said...

I think that mimicing those situations is a great training idea. The crystalized ginger is the ONLY thing besides drimamine that helps me with motion sickness. It has saved me on many a coach trips. Plus I love the taste of ginger.

SRR said...

Hmmmm...can one ever go wrong with candy bars?

Nytro said...

i've purposely sabatoged myself with candy bars in order to see if i can cure myself from being thin. it worked.

stronger said...

I ate ginger during pregnancy morning sickness- seemed to work

Habeela said...

See, this is what I get for not keeping up with my blogs in a timely fashion - this little nugget would have been so useful at my last race!