Triathlon Bloopers: Learning from the Fails – Nutrition

With more than 60 athletes on the SoCal Triathlon Team in Orange County, CA, we have more than our share of nutrition horror stories from past races. This one might just take the (chocolate) cake.

I have completed 23 marathons. I haven’t won any, but they all taught me valuable lessons, most learned the hard way. My biggest marathon blooper occurred Oct 30, 2011 at the 36th Marine Corps Marathon, which is an absolutely fantastic marathon, right up there with New York. It is known as “The People’s Marathon” as it is the largest marathon in the world that does not offer prize money. It is also called “The Marathon of Monuments” because the course starts at the Pentagon and takes you past many famous monuments including the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery. This race is put on by The Marine Corps who are out in force from athlete check-in right through to the final climb to the finish line at the Marine Corps War Memorial. Not only do the Marines operate every water station, but they also run alongside you which makes it incredibly difficult to indulge any feelings of self-pity during the dark parts of the marathon as a Marine unit runs past in formation singing strongly in unison or a solitary Marine churns by in full battledress, boots, backpack and all.

The start of the race is also a highlight with multiple flyovers of different Marine aircraft followed by a team of Marine paratroopers skydiving with the American flag to the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner. At this point I remember being so overcome with patriotism, tears were rolling down my cheeks…and I am Canadian.

So, my spirits were high at the start of the race when I bumped into an acquaintance from my running group back home. I didn’t know Maria well, but we soon discovered that our expected race times were close so we decided to run the race together. It is impossible to run an entire marathon with someone new and not become friends. There is the shared suffering of course, but more so because the small talk runs out after the first mile or so. Sure, runners can talk a long time about training but during a marathon there are still lots of miles left for the conversation to turn to hopes and dreams and the meaning of life. This is why the finish line of the 36th Marine Corps Marathon will always be a regret, courtesy of the GU energy gel called, Chocolate Outrage.

This was my 3rd marathon, and my race nutrition strategy was still very simplistic. I love food, especially chocolate, and had determined that one of the major benefits of running marathons was the apparent social acceptance of eating chocolate for close to 5 hours in the form of Chocolate Outrage energy gels. I had not spent much time researching recommended intake of race nutrition and was pretty much going by feel at this stage. Marathons are hard and taking a gel is one of the few variables you can control to try to make yourself feel better mid race. I will not admit how many Chocolate Outrage energy gels I took in that day, but you can imagine. I don’t recall Maria protesting but she was such a sweetie and much too polite to judge, openly.

I still think chocolate, in moderation, is a good thing but I now know that it’s combination of high sugar, lactose, cocoa butter and caffeine can cause digestive issues. After bingeing on Chocolate Outrage energy gels for four hours and forty-one-minutes and with the incredible finish line coming into view, an absolute battle royale had started raging in my bowels and in my head.  With all the turmoil in my body, I simply could not take in the incredible sight of Marines in full dress uniform flanking the road on the final climb to the finish line at the War Memorial that depicts the raising of the American Flag at the top of Mount Suribachi in Iwo Jima Feb 19, 1945. All my resources were fully engaged in slowing the unstoppable force brewing inside me. I was in a cold sweat as we started up the steep incline, my eyes trained on the finish line. My brain was in full panic mode trying fight and flight at the same time while also working out something marginally better than a very messy bodily breakdown in the middle of the crowded finish line scrum of family, friends, Marines and photographers. So far, all this turmoil was going on inside, so I don’t think Maria was aware anything was amiss until we crossed the finish line and I quickly said, “thanks for the run”, before turning away and bolting into the crowd. No hugs, no pictures no nothing. It must have been a shock after just sharing an incredible marathon experience and hours of personal, meaningful, thoughts and feelings. I never saw Maria again.

But that was the least of my concerns at the time. It was one minute to midnight on my Doomsday Clock which had accelerated as soon as I stopped running which allowed blood to rush back into my intestines. I was moving fast now through the crowd, eyes darting from porta potty to porta potty. Finding none without a lineup I began scanning the large, crowded square for cover of any sort. With only seconds left on my Doomsday Clock, across the street my eyes landed on golden arches which have offered relief to so many, in times of trouble. I burst through the doors of that Mickey D’s with eyes frantically straining for my holy grail. It was an interesting two-level open design restaurant with a grand staircase in the middle connecting the two levels. My objective was at the top of those stairs, and I stormed up them with the realization that I would likely have a Chocolate Outrage catastrophe mid-way up, in full view of the crowded restaurant below. I somehow conjured up the total sum of good karma that I had accumulated during my lifetime and expended it all on those next few seconds that got me up those stairs, through the bathroom door and into the single stall that was magically free. Please forgive the detail but it is no exaggeration that the moment I collapsed on that toilet the torrent of Chocolate Outrage that erupted was inhuman. The forces involved actually lifted my feet off the floor. There are no words to explain the relief despite the fact it was one of those totally enclosed European style toilets that trapped the toxic gasses being exorcised from my body. Tiles were literally coming off the walls, but I was utterly at peace. I did however feel a twinge of remorse when I, and the green cloud that followed me out of the stall, found a little boy patiently waiting in line with his grandfather who was now gesturing for the boy to go where I had just been which caused the little boy to burst into tears. Regardless, it was still a very happy ending for me but after coming so close to something so terrible, without fail before each and every race, I have a well-planned, science based, nutrition strategy...that does not include chocolate.

~ Chris