Pain in stomach while running

All the facors you suggest come into play and what you eat might also
be a factor. Fruits and vegetables (high fiber) might be a factor, or
the high protein meats might be it. try a dinner of easily digested
food like breads or pasta. Soup (especially a nice cold soup) might be
a good solution. For example I've learned I cannot eat most fruits even
two hours before a run (bananas are an exception).

Basically you'll have to experiment. Enter your meal in your log book
and track what foods make the stitch worse and which lessen it. Try to
vary only one thing at a time (food, time between meal and run, pace).
Temperature may be a factor. so track that too.

For running thru it, try changing your breathing pattern.

I suspect you have the right cause, now it's up to you to find a set of
rule for avoiding it. like most things here in r.r, you are an
experiment of one.

Enjoy the run, I'm off to do mine right now! Got to try out my new
watch!
Ed

Hey dumbass, wait three hours, problem solved.
I'll send the bill.

run in the evenings. Sometimes I run after having my dinner. I wait
for an hour after the meal before I take to the ground. When I run
after dinner, I get a pain in the left side of my stomach, just below
the rib cage. I do not have any pain if I do not eat/drink before
running.

You've answered your own question.

Toughen up, buttercup...........or face the fact that it's the jogging,
not the eating, that causes the problem.

Rahell,
Seen Chris?

I don't like to run after a meal, just because of the cramps which
you describe. Waiting 3 or so hours avoids the cramps, but also
loses the light in the evening. Running _before_ dinner works, but
only if the wife/kids are willing to have dinner late. (That is, to
delay dinner until after your run.) None of those are really good
solutions. Also, in this area, the evening air is often full of
insects. There is nothing quite like breathing in an insect to get
your attention. Finally, trying to run at the end of a day allows
lots of different "reasons' to skip a run. Anything that can happen
during a day can throw off the schedule.

I find that it works better, for me, to run in the morning. I get
up, feed the dogs, have some coffee and scan the front of the paper,
and then go for my run. After the run, I shower, have more coffee
and finish reading the paper, and then go to work. Depending on
kids school and your work schedules you may want to get up earlier
to make time. For me, it fits right in.

Early morning is really the coolest time of day, and the least
likely to be raining. The bugs aren't flying in my path. There are
few opportunities for other things to throw my schedule off, before
the day really starts. And, the world is quiet and peaceful.

The only disadvantage is that early morning takes a little more
stretching, or warm-up, because the muscles have been inactive for
7+ hours.

Steve

New_Runner said:

I run in the evenings. Sometimes I run after having my dinner. I wait
for an hour after the meal before I take to the ground. When I run
after dinner, I get a pain in the left side of my stomach, just below
the rib cage. I do not have any pain if I do not eat/drink before
running.

At one point in my running life the only(1) window of opportunity
available to me started 1.5hrs after the main meal of the day, which
produced a similar pain in the left(2) side and reduced(3) my pace
considerably. I persevered(4) and after several(5) weeks the pain
subsided and as good as(6) disappeared.

(1) Only or "only", it´s _always_ a matter of setting your priorities
in order (although you don´t have to put your running first): you
could conceivably choose to eat earlier, to eat after the run, to run
later or to run early in the morning.

(2) As an illiterate in human anatomy I´d like to know why left?

(3) Which can be a blessing in disguise for a beginning runner.

(4) By starting gently at first - walk/walk briskly/jog slowly 5-10
minutes each before breaking into a run - and by trying to hold my
posture upright and my stomach muscles tight.

(5) Four to five, IIRC.

(6) Fast "tempo" or "interval" runs were still out of the question,
though.

Quoted message said:

It would be best for my schedule (given the summer heat) that I run
after dinner. I would appreciate suggestions on what I may do to ease
the pain. Will it subside if I run through it? Should I give more time
between my meal and my run?

It would probably be wisest to try and rearrange your schedule, but if
that´s out of the question, you can try to be patient and see if you
can "run through it". Your chances aren´t poor, but OTOH we are all
unique and it might still turn out that you are one of those runners
who need three hours, minimum.

Anders

"New_Runner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi All,

I run in the evenings. Sometimes I run after having my dinner. I wait
for an hour after the meal before I take to the ground. When I run
after dinner, I get a pain in the left side of my stomach, just below
the rib cage. I do not have any pain if I do not eat/drink before
running.

It would be best for my schedule (given the summer heat) that I run
after dinner. I would appreciate suggestions on what I may do to ease
the pain. Will it subside if I run through it? Should I give more time
between my meal and my run?

You can try that, although I think (I'm not a gastroenterologist) meals
stick around in the stomach for more like a few hours. But an hour after a
small to medium sized meal, particularly if you've avoided steak, ham, milk
products, and other slow-digesting foods - is generally enough. I certainly
understand that an hour after dinner probably works well with your schedule
or the workouts are more comfortable otherwise (less hot sun, fewer bugs,
etc) and the good news is in my experience your body can adapt to it and
stop cramping.

What's happening is that your body is fighting it's own priorities -
your gut has been accustomed to receiving all the blood flow and nutrients
it wants to do digestion, and when you begin running your body diverts a
large portion of it to your legs, arms, torso muscles, and chest. The
result is that the gut feels 'pain' because it's not receiving what it
usually gets. Usually it's just a dull aching pain just like you feel
around the rest of your body when you're working out very hard - but in some
cases it causes a light cramping that will get more intense if you don't
stop. Your gut will condition itself to slow down / stop more politely
during workouts if you give it some time.

I get these cramps occasionally when I'm out of shape and trying to get
back into it. Definitely don't run so hard to make the cramping get more
intense. They are not fun, but they won't kill you, and your gut will adapt
to this if you run continue training just hard enough that when you feel one
coming on, relax your pace and relax the muscles in your torso and it will
usually not get worse. After a couple weeks I usually find they happen much
less frequently.
FWIW, I've noticed this same effect when drinking a lot of water in the
middle of a distance run. Again, I try not to exercise hard when doing this
for a couple weeks, but my body becomes more accustomed to it and the
cramping response stops happening.

Dave