I went for my lunchtime swim today, did somewhat more laps than usual, maybe swam a little harder than usual. (I am not at all an accomplished swimmer, just a recovering runner.) After my shower I just wanted to puke. I broke out in a cold sweat, felt generally rotten, and quietly wished for death. I had to lie on the bench for about 5 minutes before I could finish getting dressed. This happened only once before, 27 years ago when I ran cross country.
Questions: Is this what athletes call "bonking?" What is the physiological condition that causes it -- build-up of lactic acid? Running out of blood glucose? Not enough oxygen in the brain? Dehydration? What is the preventive -- Big breakfast? Stretching? Being in better shape? Wearing boxers rather than briefs?
Thanks for your help.
I thought I would unearth this one. I had the same experience as the initial poster at my workout today. I also was thinking "did I bonk?". I'm still kind of curious about how the whole thing happened. I wonder how common this is.
My Day...
At 6:30 A.M. I had a bowl of cereal. 16 oz water
At 9:00 A.M. I had Eggs, Toast, Ham, and 1/2 an Orange. 20 oz water.
Homework til 10:30.
11:00 - 12:30 Swim: Slightly less yards than normal. Stretched out over an hour and a half instead of 1 hour. Much higher percentage of sprinting than normal. The whole thing felt off, it took much longer than usual to warm up, etc. I most of my 24 oz water bottle, we'll call it 20 oz.
NOW here's in interesting thing that was mentioned earlier here. I was wearing a heart rate monitor as usual. When I saw the workouts results I was SHOCKED that my maximum recorded heart rate was about 10% lower than my normal maximum recorded heartrate in any given workout. I felt those sprints were kicking my butt even though I didn't go as fast as I would have liked.
I felt fine until I was finishing up my shower. Total Nausea, lightheadedness, general sense that standing was not a good idea. I sat wrapped in my towel for about 20 minutes feeling like the plague had hit me until I forced myself to get dressed and get out of there. I called my husband and asked him to have a pb&j sandwich with some chocolate milk waiting for me when I got home. (If he hadn't raided my purse the night before for pick-up hockey money I would have been able to go to the vending machine, so this was plenty fair). I generally felt much better at the sandwich but I still feel like I haven't eaten nearly enough today.
I wasn't dehydrated. I had a reasonable amount of fuel in my system. I only did between 2400 and 2800 yards (I did 12 minutes of working on breaststroke turns, so I didn't really calculate that part) in 1-1/2 hours. I normally do roughly 3000 in an hour. I wasn't worn out from other activities.
What gives? Maybe time will tell that this is a precursor to being sick. But it seems to be random extreme nausea.
I wonder how common this is?
*snip*
Michelle I had sometign like this Monday thru Wednesday. I'd get my dizzy, shaky spell about 3pm. I nixed swimming monday thinking I was going to be geting real ill, my son had stomach issues last weekend. Nothing happened except the dizziness, and feeling a bit weak. I slept it off for an hour and felt better but tired.
Wednesday I forced myself to go swimmng and felt sluggish. I did 100 yards of warm up and *** drill, fly and back work then I took a bathroom break.
While in the bathroom I found breathing a bit difficult...like I was going to faint. I got back into the water hugged the wall and felt much better...I then swam 1800 of Front crawl and felt very strong.
I think some bug is doing the rounds again and maybe the air temperature change from the pool to the locker room caused my body to react in a shocked way because of the slight illness thing.
Obvioulsy it could be something totally different but since we're not millions of miles apart... I figure I'd share my "odd feeling" with you. Sounds liek something similar in parts. My appetite was not decreased in this spell either. I think the forced swimming Wed helped my system buck up and fight it off...
