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Cramp problems

Hi,



Im new to the sport & hoping to enter some sprint tri's this summer, been training for 6 weeks although reasonbly fit prior to the training. Today I decided to do a dummy run of the Duathlon I have entered next week, 4.5k/16k/4.5k, felt pretty good fitness wise however going from bike to run it felt like my calfs were going to cramp up, it did not develop into full cramp and went after about 200 metres. I was wondering if anyone else has suffered this & anything I can do to avoid getting cramp in the actual race??



I drank 250 ml Maxim energy drink about 30 mins before running and roughly 400 ml during the bike session.



Any advice would be appreciated.

Comments

  • tomroomtomroom Posts: 33
    It is important to drink isotonic drinks such as lucozage and taut and of course stretch. But what are you describing sounds more like the horrible feeling of your first brick session. Basically the more you do the easier it becomes, I've posted some more advice in a brick session thread which should help you get used to that feeling.



    Tom

  • LeeCookLeeCook Posts: 22
    i got full blown cramp in both calves on the bike at clumber park duathlon. I think cramp is more prone in duathlon over triathlon because you tend to sweat alot more on the first run than in the swim. I personally drank alot of water before the race and took a couple of magnesium supplements before to try and prevent this. In hind sight i should have had a few isotonic drinks before hand but personally i think alot of these drinks are full of rubbish. Many of them have lots of glucose in them which will lead to deteriorated performance over a long duration race. I believe taut is completely natural but i have yet to see somewhere that sells it. Perhaps someone can tell me??
  • tomroomtomroom Posts: 33
    Taut is completely natural and can be found at Sainsburys but supplies are never that big. One word of warning is that its calorie content is pretty low - 92 per 500ml if I remember right. So I think it is a very good drink before and after race but perhaps not during. Lee is right that high glucose drinks will deteriorate your performance is overly used but I think that as long as you diet is generally good that you can get away with a higher calorie sports drink in races, even with a few additives, if it will get you to the finish line a bit quicker.
  • TTX PROTTX PRO Posts: 225
    I agree with tomroom.Basicly what your describing is like someone pulling rope through your muscles and its a horrible feeling weve all had it at one stage but its your muscle telling you youve gone a bit over but dont let that stop you becouse it will get less frequent as you do more.Its just got to get used to it[:D]
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