Welcome to another edition of Ask Coach Parry. Paul Derbyshire submitted his question today and he gives quite a bit of background. He says during his last 3 Comrades Marathon he became extremely nauseous.

It happened at the Comrades Marathon 40km mark in 2014, the 52km mark in 2013 and the 64km mark in 2012. In other words, it seems to be happening earlier in each run of the Comrades Marathon. He has been hydrating adequately, but has noticed that the water seems to sit in his stomach and doesn’t get absorbed into his body.

When he does start throwing up, there is a lot of water. This said, he is generally dehydrated at the end as he usually only goes to the loo and has a wee once during the Comrades Marathon race and then 10 or so hours after the Comrades Marathon race.

He did not take any anti-inflammatories in the 2014 run. He finished all the runs in around 11:45 and always got to the half way mark in around 5 hours. He runs a marathon in 4 hours. He generally takes 32GI, gels and eats bananas, sandwiches and Christmas cake and potatoes on the run.

Next year he wants to omit solids as he thinks having read dozens of articles that this could be the problem:  where the blood is moved away from the stomach to the legs, and hence the food is bouncing round in your stomach.

He never gets sick when he runs a marathon?? Any advice on what to look out for, and possible hydration/eating and fuel strategies for the day. His first 4 Comrades Marathons' he never got nauseous and finished 10h30-11h00. Hope you can give some advice or steer him to one or two articles??

Brad Brown: Welcome to another edition of Ask Coach Parry. Paul Derbyshire submitted his question today and he gives quite a bit of background. He says during his last 3 Comrades Marathon he became extremely nauseous.

It happened at the Comrades Marathon 40km mark in 2014, the 52km mark in 2013 and the 64km mark in 2012. In other words, it seems to be happening earlier in each run of the Comrades Marathon. He has been hydrating adequately, but has noticed that the water seems to sit in his stomach and doesn’t get absorbed into his body.

When he does start throwing up, there is a lot of water. This said, he is generally dehydrated at the end as he usually only goes to the loo and has a wee once during the Comrades Marathon race and then 10 or so hours after the Comrades Marathon race.

He did not take any anti-inflammatories in the 2014 run. He finished all the runs in around 11:45 and always got to the half way mark in around 5 hours. He runs a marathon in 4 hours. He generally takes 32GI, gels and eats bananas, sandwiches and Christmas cake and potatoes on the run.

Next year he wants to omit solids as he thinks having read dozens of articles that this could be the problem:  where the blood is moved away from the stomach to the legs, and hence the food is bouncing round in your stomach.

He never gets sick when he runs a marathon?? Any advice on what to look out for, and possible hydration/eating and fuel strategies for the day. His first 4 Comrades Marathons' he never got nauseous and finished 10h30-11h00. Hope you can give some advice or steer him to one or two articles??

Lindsey Parry: I am going to ask an obvious question, but is he doing anything different now to what he did in his first 4 Comrades Marathons? If he is, he needs to go back to what he was doing then. The fact that he is throwing up so much water also leads me to believe he is over-hydrating by a lot.

Don’t ditch the solids completely

The Comrades Marathon is one of the easier races out there to do it on because the tables come so frequently. There are just so many tables. He needs to look at the actual amount of fluids he is taking in, and perhaps he is taking in a bit too many solids but I wouldn’t cut solids out completely.

Because chances are that it is excessive amounts of water and glucose that is leading to him feeling nauseous. Particularly if there is some sort of liver function issue, but we won’t be able to tell unless he actually has a liver function test.

But again, because the water stations come so thick and fast, it is entirely possible to have just too much sugar and too much water. That leads to nausea and your body wants to get rid of some of those fluids and some of those sugars and you start throwing up.

Go back to basics – if it worked for you don’t change it

But firstly I would go back and look at what I did in my first Comrades Marathon, if it was successful. If it is the same as what he’s been doing and he’s getting progressively worse over the years, then something obviously needs to change.

That to me would point some sort of liver function issue. But before he gets into a flat panic about that he should perhaps go and chat to a sport physician, do a couple of tests. And minimise the hydration or taking in of fluids and try and keep it down to between 300 and 400mls.

Monitor your fluid intake

Obviously you will find if you get really thirsty you can increase that slightly. But if you stick to 300 or 400mls of fluids, that will include water as well as energy drinks. That is your total fluid intake for the hour. Then obviously increasing that slightly when you do get thirsty.

That is what I would recommend you do. If you follow the typical guidelines you find in the literature, you just take in way too much fluids.