An Honest Note About Runners Trots, and What I Am Beginning to Suspect

I have not written about this in a while because it is embarrassing, and the last time I wrote about it, I gave the usual advice.

That was in 2020. I wrote a piece about how to prevent runners trots, and I gave the standard precautions. Do not eat anything for one to two hours before running. Stay hydrated. Avoid dairy, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, spicy foods, high-fibre foods, and foods high in fat. Check your clothes are not tight around your midsection. Try not to stress about it.

Runners trots: a runner kneels to tie a shoelace on a leaf-strewn trail, an unexpected pause in a morning run.

I still stand by that advice. It is good advice, and if you have not read the article, it is here.

But five years later, I want to say something I did not know then. I have been doing all of those things, faithfully, for years. And I still have this problem. Not always, but often enough that I have been quietly working with it in the background, wondering what I was missing. On one recent morning at parkrun, something happened that I want to tell you about, because I think it is the beginning of an answer.

The Morning at Parkrun

I had done everything right. I had breakfast well ahead of time. I went to the bathroom twice before leaving the house. I felt ready.

Just as I was leaving to run the two kilometres to the start, I felt cramps in my tummy. I left anyway. I knew there were bathroom facilities along the way, so that was my backup plan. By the time I arrived at the facilities, the cramping was gone. I felt fine. I used the bathroom anyway, just to be sure. As it turned out, I did not need to go. Good, I thought. I am all set for the 5k.

I want to pause and say something here, because it matters. About a month before this parkrun, the same thing had happened, and I did not finish. I had to leave the run at about three kilometres and make a desperate dash to the park toilets. I did not want that to become a regular thing. So, I came to this morning's parkrun already carrying a quiet worry about it. Not in the forefront of my mind, but there. Underneath.

About two kilometres into the run, painful cramping started.

The Realization Mid-Run

For a moment I thought, oh no. Then I thought, this is so ridiculous. I had done everything I was supposed to do. I had emptied my bowels. I had not eaten anything that should be causing this. There was no physical reason for these cramps.

And with that thought, a different one arrived, one I had not had before. What if I am doing this to myself? Maybe subconsciously I am nervous about this happening and the nervousness is causing me tummy upset. What if the fear of this happening, which I carry into every morning run, is part of what causes it?

I did not have time to answer the question. The cramping was intensifying. I softened it with attention, the way I have learned to soften an aching hamstring. Not by fighting it. By allowing it to be there and relaxing around it. It eased. Then it came back. I softened again. It eased again.

This continued for the rest of the run. Cramping, softening, cramping, softening. It wasn't easy. There were moments when the pain was sharp enough that I wondered if I was going to make it. But I kept going, kept softening, kept refusing to abandon the run.

I crossed the finish line. Shortly afterwards, I visited the toilet block.

Once I did, the cramping was gone, and something quieter happened. I suddenly felt very relaxed. It was as though a great burden had lifted, and I do not think it had much to do with the effort of the run itself. It had to do with the fear.

Runners Trots May Not Be the Physical Problem I Thought It Was

Here is what I keep thinking about.

I only ever have this issue on morning runs. Never in the evening.

If runners trots were purely a physical problem for me, driven by food or hydration or the physical jostling of running, it should happen at any time of day. It does not. Evening runs are fine. Morning runs are not. Something about the morning, or about how I approach a morning run, is different from how I approach an evening one.

Two runners heading down a quiet road in bright morning sunlight.

The most obvious difference is what is going on in my mind. In the evening, I have been through the day. I am relaxed. There is no worry about what might happen. In the morning, especially at parkrun, there is a quiet worry that I have been carrying for years without fully naming it. What if it happens today. What if I do not finish. What if I have to make a desperate dash for the trees. What if something embarrassing were to happen.

The worry might be creating the very thing I am afraid of.

Where This Leaves Me

I don't believe my problem has been resolved, but I do feel that I have a better understanding. I do not have a technique that reliably prevents cramping on morning runs. I have not yet found a way to run in the morning without carrying that quiet worry into the run with me.

What I do have is a hypothesis. And a small piece of evidence for it, from one morning at parkrun when I managed to finish rather than run for the trees. And a growing sense that runners' trots, for me at least, may not be quite the physical problem I have been treating it as for years.

I am going to keep paying attention. I am going to write about what I notice on future morning runs. I do not know how long this will take to work out, or whether I will fully work it out at all. But I want to write about it as I go, honestly, in the middle of the working out. Not from the end point.

If you have this problem too, and you would like to think about it alongside me, you are welcome to. I would be interested to hear from any of you who have noticed a similar pattern in your own running. Please post your comments below or message me.

Jackie

P.S. If you are looking for the usual precautions, the earlier piece on how to prevent runners' trots is here. Everything in it is still true. This new piece is about what happens when you have already done all of that and the problem persists.

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I can relate!
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I can really relate to it. I experience a similar issue—whenever I run long distances, I urgently need to use the …

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