Runners' Surprise: Marathon Diarrhea Strikes Again!

Oh man. As a guy who has pooped my pants during running events back in the day, I find this highly relevant. So this is actually pretty good advice. The reasons that runners experience GI distress. This dude. Spot on. This Dr. Tommy Martin. Nerves, anxiety, dehydration, physical jostling of the body. That's a big one. Sympathetic nervous system, shifting blood to the muscles rather than the digestive system. And decreased control. Funnest one yet, the anal sphincter. These are all things that can happen. They've happened to me. Yes, I pooped my pants. I had one race in Thailand where everything exploded and I was running into farms and homes along the way and sticking garden hoses down my butt to wash things off. Anyways, not a pleasant scenario.

Gave it out to you.

Everything I have for the people 256.

I shave my pants like crazy.

I'm going after it all day, every day. Fit people drives 56 minute man.

People pooping your pants during a marathon? Yeah, it happens. Let's talk about it. First of all, 256 marathon. Props to you. That's impressive. Let me know down in the comments if you'd poop in your pants to run a 256 marathon. I probably would. So why does this happen? First of all, it's not just during marathons. It could be during any run, especially one where you're exerting a lot of effort. The reason being is your sympathetic nervous system is taking over. And when it does this, it diverts blood from organs it doesn't necessarily need to use right now to the muscles that are being used. So for example, instead of blood going to your splanknic system, which is your GI system, it's going to divert that blood to your muscles, especially your legs when you're running so hard. But unfortunately, when this happens, that decreased blood flow can cause major problems such as pooping your pants. General symptoms that this is happening is you might start having some abdominal pain, cramping, nausea, diarrhea, and potentially even vomiting. In rare cases where it actually causes ischemia, it can cause you to poop blood as well. Another thing to mention is when the rest of your muscles are working so, so hard, your mind is really not thinking about your anal sphincter muscle to work. Although maybe it should, but it just makes it that much easier for poop just to come out. So how common is this? We actually have a study that talks about it that looked at about 100 endurance runners. You can see the numbers right here. 12% of people actually poop their pants during a run, 62% had to stop during a training workout to poop, 43% had nervous diarrhea before the race, which I commonly have, and 51 said they had diarrhea after the race. So yes, runner's diarrhea is a real thing. And if you're going to be running a lot of marathons, I would say it's not if you poop your pants, but probably when you poop your pants, at least have to stop and poop in a Porta Potty.

So here is something that not addressed in the video that you should be aware of and it's this word zonulin. Z O N U L I N Zonulin is something that can increase permeability of your gut lining. Think of this as like a cheesecloth. And zonulin makes the cheesecloth holes to be bigger and bigger and that allows large particles to pass into the bloodstream. It's called increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. And this same type of leaky gut can contribute to some pretty significant poop issues and digestive distress, especially during endurance exercise. Especially during endurance exercise in the heat. So this is not a complete prescription for pooping doom during your race. Instead, a few quick tips for you. First of all, one thing that I discovered early on in the day that has research behind it to decrease gut permeability during exercise and hot weather, particularly endurance exercise, is colostrum. You take a scoop of colostrum before you go out and do your event 30 to 60 minutes prior, you let it dissolve in your mouth. Because the enzymes in your mouth help to activate the factors in the colostrum that can help to reduce leaky gut. Boom. You're good. Something else that works similarly is L glutamine, sometimes easier to find than a good colostrum, but L glutamine, about 5 grams of L Glutamine. If you have leaky gut, gut issues, irritable bowel, anything like that, glutamine can be a fantastic friend for you. Ginger. Ginger can help with a lot of the gastrointestinal motility issues that can strike, especially when you're running. And you can chew on the little gingin ginger candies you can even take. And I do this still when I travel. Sometimes getting upset, you can just take ginger root, put it in your mouth, chew on it. Sometimes I like to boil it down first and make ginger tea, then chew on the leftover fragments. But ginger is fantastic. And then one really important thing to think about here is I would actually say two things. Two important things to think about. One is that oral peptides have been shown to decrease gut permeability. There's one company called Level Up Health out of Australia. They make some fantastic oral peptide formulations, including gut repair formula. A month and a half of me taking that when I had elevated zonulin, dropped it to rock bottom. So these are things like BPC157KPV, PEA, these orally bioavailable peptides that can be really helpful in a situation like this. The other thing to think about is how you fuel. And I completely change the way that I fuel when I used to race, partially due to this gastric distress and fermentation that can occur when you're consuming the standard carbohydrate mixes that are often recommended to endurance athletes like marathoners or triathletes. This is where ketones come in. Ketones are fantastic because they don't cause the same type of gas and bloating, but because they're a preferred fuel for the liver, for the heart, for the diaphragm, for the brain. And they can give you good energy, especially for aerobic endurance exercise. You can replace sugary gels that you might consume during something like a marathon with ketones. Final pro tip for you, by the way, if you do take this ketone approach, you just have a few shots of like liquid ketones like Ketone IQ or Ketone Aid or Delta G in your pocket before you go out and race or in your fuel belt. You still, if you are trying to be competitive, are going to reach a point in the race where you really want to start going hard. For me, that used to be about the final six miles of the marathon, when I knew it had about a 10k left to go. In that situation, that's when you would turn to and start to use the carbs. The carbs are available to you on the race course. And I find that just a flat Coke, flat cold coke with a little bit of ice that they tend to have at a lot of these races works really well. Or any of these gels, those can work. The problem is if you start off with the sugar on the gels too early in the race, sometimes that can backfire. In this case, literally and figuratively. And as you know from watching this video, backfiring is never fun. So have a great race. Remember your toilet paper. I hope these tips help.