Real Food for the Soul
Most of us as runners have had the moment when we are out on the trails and suddenly, unavoidably you need to go to the toilet.
It’s fairly common and slightly annoying if on a training run but if it happens and keeps happening during a race it can really make or break your pace, place, PB or even if you can finish the run. We all know the sage advice of never trying anything new on race day, but what if you adhere to all that and it keeps happening?
It could be that the liquids or gels you are using to keep your glycogen stores up are actually wreaking havoc on your digestion and causing your symptoms.
This is because gels and sports drinks can actually obstruct movement of water across the small intestine and directly irritate and overwhelm your gut, especially if you are dehydrated, stressed or hot.
To understand why this may be happening we need to look into how our digestion works and delve into some science.
The main area I want to focus on is the small intestine as it plays a major role in whether you end up with gastric disturbances or not and it is all to do with osmotic gradients.
An osmotic gradient is the difference in concentration between two solutions on either side of a semipermeable membrane.
The small intestine has a semipermeable membrane that allows water
