Q and A: Post Race Puking
1 04 2009Hi Kelly,
I have a fitness question for you. I hope you can help make my next race finish a more pleasant experience.
The problem is that I get nauseous at the end of (running) races. I’ve had it happen all distances from 5k to a 1/2 marathon. Basically I feel fine during the race right up until I should give the final kick, but if I try to push right at the end I really feel like I’m going to puke. And I have puked- both after the race and in one horrible experience on the side of the road with the finish line in sight.
I’m not really sure what’s going on. I give myself plenty of time to digest my breakfast before the race starts, and I don’t drink during a 5 or 10k but I hydrate appropriately during a 1/2 marathon. Someone suggested it was an eating/drinking thing, but it’s more like a “puke after a hard interval” feeling rather than an “I ran with a full stomach” feeling. I do lots and lots of interval training and I’ve been running for about 5 years now. This problem has only crept up in the last year.
Any suggestions? Is this all in my head (as a running friend suggested)? Do I just need to learn to “tough out” the puke feeling? More intervals? It’s so frustrating to have a great race but get passed right before the finish line because my stomach just won’t let me speed up.
Chelsea
Usually if you throw up from exercise, its because you over-exerted yourself- not from what/when you ate. Especially since it happens when you run races, you are probably just pushing yourself harder than you are used to.
As far as how to stop it, I dont have any other tricks besides to train more. Im not a racer though, so perhaps I am missing some insider info.
All you racers out there- any tips on curbing the pukes?
Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,
i puked on a volunteer’s sneakers after a 10K race once. i had also pushed myself really hard AND made the mistake of drinking gatorade mid-race. yuck!
Wish I could help– my racing experience is that some runners just push themselves to puke, no matter what their training…
unfortunately, i think that’s just the way your body responds when you are pushing yourself to the limit. it’s definitely happened to me before in my cross country days!
on the bright side, even though post-race puking/nausea is highly unpleasant, at least you can leave the race knowing that you truly gave your all! I was always more disappointed finishing a race feeling like I had more energy in me than if I ended up puking. Nowadays, I “race” more for fun, so I don’t push myself to that limit..
Hmmm, nope, never puked (during/after a race). But I would agree with tfh - some people are just born pukers, through and through. I guess I would say to slow it down a bit? Seems obvious, but it’s worth a shot.
I agree, probably from over-exertion. That only happened to me once.. don’t want it to happen again:).
I’m not a puker, but my advice is not to push so hard at the end of the race. You can make up for it by giving a slightly less hard but longer effort earlier in the race.
you’re more than likely pushing extra hard the whole way cause it’s race day, plus just general excitement of the day. try and pull back a bit. track your time and compare it to your training and see how much more you’re actually pushing yourself.
I’ve puked after a race or two although it’s not something that happens to me very often. For me, it seemed to be more of excessive nerves messing up my breathing. I’d get really excited/nervous at the end of the race and think things like “Better kill it now! I’m going for that PR!” and then immediately my mind would be like “What if you don’t make it? What if your first split was too slow? You’re so cloooose! Don’t lose it now!” Then the nerves would make my breathing all erratic, my stomach would cramp and viola - barf. Now, I try and keep a good handle on my pace from beginning to end and stop the negative thoughts before they start. I think it helps.
It definitely is from pushing too hard. Last year I played on a soccer team with a midfielder who would go all out for the 90 minutes we played. He would throw up at halftime and sometimes after the game too.
Another thing to avoid is running in high heat, too. That can cause nausea and possibly, vomiting.
Assuming it’s not a stomach issue (i.e. that you’re not bloated from eating too much before the race) nausea and vomiting is generally the result of a good hard ananerobic push. When you’re really pushing hard, blood lactic acid levels will rise significantly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic_acidosis
Note that the above link on lactic acidosis really focuses on it as a medical condition (bad!) not as the result of a hard workout (fine, provided it’s not an all the time thing).
Some more intense sprint intervals that focus on lactic acid production and lactic acid tolerance will probably help you develop a little resistance to this.
A full discussion of aLA tolerance/production sprint training is probably outside the scope of this mini-rant though. I’m happy to send you some info if you want though, just email me.
I’m going also going to say that my opinion runs a little counter what everyone else said here. Don’t worry about puking, unless you do it all the time. From what I read above it’s a fairly rare event. I rarely actually boot from a workout, but I know if I do a 5K or something and I don’t at least gag at the end I know that I had more to give than I did, and am disappointed in myself.
The kick and the end of a race should involve you pouring everything you have into that final sprint. If you puke after the race, so be it. If you puke before it’s over, do it quickly and keep running.
My two cents.
My advice would be when you get to the point where you “feel” like you’re going to puke, either slow down or stop. I saw three people puke after a 10k I did a couple of weeks ago, it was not pretty.