Yesterday was an adventure in sampling carbs of many formats, so when I rose very early today to get my run in on an empty stomach, I thought, why not carry on the experiment and try yet another format - gel.
I'd bought two of those runner's energy gel packs and brought them with me on the morning of my 5 mile race; but I hadn't used them, partly because I didn't need any more energy, and partly because I'd been afraid of what they might do to me. Not a good idea to try something new (e.g., peanut butter!) on race day. Also, I am very sensitive to anything artificial; and while I'd carefully checked the ingredients listings to make sure there wasn't anything I knew I was allergic to, like artificial sweetener, or yellow dye, who knows what else might have been in there that I could have had a bad reaction to.
Today seemed like the perfect moment to give one a try. I wasn't going to eat anything before I ran, and the gel pack has caffeine, so it would serve as both breakfast and coffee - a run-friendly pick me up before my 4+ mile session. I'd managed to pop out of bed with the alarm, and had every reason in the world to believe I'd accomplish my goal, so I was in a fine mood and perhaps maybe even a little excited to dip my toe in the waters of performance enhancing drugs. This could be my own little Valley of the Dolls! I was going to see "how high" was legally up?
I'd picked a flavor called Tri-Berry, which had sounded so lovely, but the taste was purely vile. I could only cope with about 1/3 of the pack, drank some water, and started running. For a few minutes, I felt nothing. I jogged, and then ran, and waited... Then quite suddenly, it hit me - a violent spike of "bad energy" coming up from my stomach, going into my chest, and striking into my heart like a roughly hewn wooden stake. Panic!
I tried to run through it, run it out... but after a mile it only seemed to be getting worse, and strangely, the muscles in my calves were knotting up in unison, in a way that has never happened to me before. I tried getting off the treadmill for a minute and stretching but, the nausea and pounding of my heart told me I had made a small mistake, and I'd better accept it immediately and just change strategy. I thought of Dr. Metzl's speech about preventing injury, and how the new runner is at biggest risk because she doesn't know when her body is giving a warning sign. I wasn't sure, but it felt like I was getting a warning sign, so I stopped. I mapped out when I'd be able to make this run up later in the week, to make myself feel better, and then hightailed it to the elevator.
Even as I write this I still feel quite nauseous and my heart continues to race. How something so seemingly innocuous could be so hard for me to handle kind of bothers me. I've been counting on being "just like everyone else" throughout this running adventure - and surely gel packs are widely used. Why must I go off now and seem different, sensitive, intolerant? Maybe I just did it wrong - and I should have waited until mile 4 to take the hit? I will have to get more information. I'm not totally giving up on gel packs but clearly, the way I did it today, does not work for me and gel carbs are off the list of "good carbs" in my book! Back to whole wheat, brown rice, chocolate and alcohol. Tried and true. Definitely, the way to go.
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