What If It’s Just Hunger?

Nutrition and stomach problems might seem like a purely physiological problem to solve.

But there's a big mind component to it too.

Your body sends your mind signals - physical sensations. You have to decide what they mean, and it's easy to make assumptions about what the signals mean.

Let's say you feel your stomach tighten. If you've had a stomach problem before, your mind doesn't wait for more information:

• I ate at the last aid station, so I don't need to eat yet. Oh no! I must have eaten something that doesn't agree with me.

• There goes my stomach! This wasn't supposed to happen. I made changes. I shouldn't be feeling this.

• Same mile as last time. Here we go again. This is going to end my race just like it did last time.

You feel dismayed, devastated or angry about your stomach. If only it wasn't a problem, you could run a strong race.

You either try to ignore it, or you do the opposite and obsess about how to fix it. But every fix has a reason it won't work or hasn't worked before, even though you thought it would. The logistics of where to drop - if you need to - flit through your mind. You can't pay attention to pace or racing right now - you have to figure out how to fix your stomach.

Neither ignoring it nor obsessing over it fixes what your stomach is actually trying to convey.

Hunger. The sensation simply means hunger.

I've felt the same thing often in a race, and when I really listened to it, found my stomach was growling. It was hunger - not surprising, since you're likely to burn more calories per mile in a race than in training, simply due to effort and stress.

My clients often find the same, once they stop and actually check.

Like someone talking over you, the voice in your head talked over what your stomach was telling you. You assumed it couldn't be hunger because you just ate. So that must mean something you were already worried about - your stomach going south.

This doesn't mean that every time your stomach tightens it means you're hungry. It means it's a possibility that gets overlooked if you're expecting a stomach problem.

The point is to pay attention - in detail - to any sensation your body is sending before you start jumping to conclusions in your mind.

So on your next long run or race, or even during your normal day, watch carefully how you interpret a sensation your stomach or gut is sending, before that voice in your head interrupts it.

Your body is on your side. The better you learn to listen to it, the better you two work together.