I love long, hard runs. But for several years now, I’ve had to deal with bouts of, say, “tummy issues” when I train for long periods of time. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day I ran, or how well hydrated I was. The same thing happened: My stomach would wait until I got just far enough away from a suitable bathroom, and then it would hit me. I would have cases of diarrhea that can only be measured in astronomical terms.
I always thought that this was just me. Recently, however, a lot of my teammates have been complaining of similar problems. I decided to do some research, to see if there’s a link between running and upset stomach.
Turns out there is, and apparently it’s pretty well-known. I found an article at Runner’sWorld about how running tends to exacerbate pre-existing symptoms of lactose intolerance and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). If your body has a hard time digesting lactose, for instance, you may not notice the problems under normal circumstances. But the sloshing and jostling of running, combined with the tendency to divert blood from your intestinal tract, makes lactose digestion impossible. Suddenly, you’re experiencing the symptoms of full-blown lactose intolerance (say, epic poops).
How do we fix this? The experts recommend skipping dairy and fiber and other problematic foods for a full 24 hours before each run. But that obviously won’t work for those of us who run every day. So what do we do?
The people at Runner’sWorld offer many solutions, but I found the most viable options- those which require the least change to daily life- are found at Coolrunning.com and Marathontraining.com. They suggest:
Sources:
Posted by turtlerunner 
