Forums >Health and Nutrition>Possibly unique problem
OK, here's my story: In 2013, I had weight loss surgery, and lost over 100 lbs, before I started running. My problem is, that now my stomach can only hold 4-6 oz of food at a given time. I can't exactly carbo-load before a race. I've done half marathons, and GU packets have been enough to get me through, but I worry now that I'm training for a full marathon, I won't have the nourishment to carry me to the finish line. Any ideas?
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Pay attention to your needs for in-race 'fueling', but don't worry about the carb loading specifically.
Carb loading for most of us hobby runners is something of a myth. One of the purposes of the long runs in your marathon training are to help your body get ready for using all your energy sources -- carbs, fats, and what you ingest while running (gu, sports drink, etc). Use those training runs to try various combos of drink, sport beans, gu, jelly doughnuts, M&Ms (kidding) which work well for your digestion.
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Marathon is twice as long as a half marathon...carry twice as many gu packets with you and take one every 3 miles at the end.
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When you run the actual race, be sure to fuel every 30 minutes or so. It doesn't have to be a lot, but you want to start fueling before you feel like you need it. I carry a small flask that has about 4 gels in it. I take a swig of that every 30 minutes spaced out it's empty as I near the finish. Try to do some of your training runs, especially the medium and long runs, w/out fueling to teach your body to try to use some of your fat stores for energy.
runktrun
Use your longer training runs to experiment. As already mentioned, carbo-loading isn't the mythical giant pasta dinner everyone envisions. You can still increase your carb intake and thus your glycogen stores in the 72 hours before a race by just eating a higher percent of carbs in your regular intake. So stick with your smaller meals, but make sure you focus on the carbs in those meals, then maybe add a carb-heavy (think: bagel) snack or two 48-24hrs before. Try this in the days leading up to your longer training runs. During your long runs, experiment with adding more GUs + water as you add more miles, or, because your stomach is more sensitive to higher volumes, try Gatorade rather than GU + water. I would advise against GU + Gatorade because of the high sugar content of that combo. Your body can only digest and begin to metabolize about 100 calories an hour while you are running, don't worry so much about increasing in-race nutrition. Good luck!
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Carbo-loading isn't really packing your stomach with pasta until it almost bursts. It's eating lots of carbs over the whole day so they are absorbed into your body and ready as energy for the race. Small stomach shouldn't be an issue.
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+1. In the days prior to the race, continue your healthy balanced eating. During the race, it's carb-maintenance - that's what Gu's are for. In my marathon a few days ago, I tried to maintain a steady intake of energy from the time I got up at 4:30 am to the start and through the race. I did so with a fruit cup, about three granola or power bars, and three Gu's. I might have added a banana if I had had one handy.
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But, that's how I like to prepare for a 5K.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
Here's a fragment of an article that I found:
Who can benefit from carbohydrate loading?
Carbohydrate loading is only effective for endurance events lasting longer than 90 minutes, such as marathons, ultra marathons, and triathlons.During intense, continuous endurance exercise, your muscles will become depleted of glycogen after about 90 minutes. Carbohydrate loading is meant to store extra glycogen that your muscles can tap into once the normal stores are used up.Therefore, carbohydrate loading is not useful for events like a 5k or 10k since the running effort will not be long enough to completely deplete muscle glycogen stores.Any extra glycogen in the muscles during those events may actually be detrimental to performance due to the potential of muscle stiffness and heaviness that can be associated with carbohydrate loading.
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