Fail to prepare and all that.
Iām all set for my 6km-7km run tomorrow. Have a bit of rope to tie this lunchbox to my shoulder.
I did 9k there and if I take away the piss stop it was around 48.20.
My average pace is slowly coming down thanks to @Bandageās advice of running slower and longer.
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Very good advice but could be extended to the day of the match as well. Dinner after half 4 on the day of a late evening match is very risky. You need to be like a farmer grazing at 1 in the afternoon to be sure of no stitch.
Someone else here recently mentioned the dreaded āstitchā as well.
Isnāt that just something that kids get?
And just look at the supportive comments below my post last June from my coaches @fenwaypark and @caulifloweredneanderthal. Theyāve been with me from the start. I must award some retrospective likes.
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No, itās not. What makes you think that?
I used to get stitches when I was a small fella, there was always talk in school and at underage games or training of lads having a stitch.
I just stopped hearing about them in adult sport and never got one myself since, must have assumed it was a growing up thing??
Probably more common in teenagers alright. I like having 3-4 hours between a meal and a match so that Iām in prime condition to run my opponent up and down the pitch for an hour. The problem is when you end up marking some even nippier player just out of minorš
Think I remember hearing Derek McGrath say that Stephen Oā Keefe used to have a bowl of chips before a game. Interestingly Sean Oā Brien the rugby player often has a bowl of rice pudding before a match.
They are far more common in under 18s, 80% of kids experience them, but they are also common in adultsā¦ I get them regularly, I have a hernia in my stomach (hiatal hernia) and I wonder if itās connected.
Hereās a bit about them.
Despite being very common, the exact cause of a stitch isnāt fully understood, says Australian scientist Dr Darren Morton, who did his PhD on stitches and has been involved in numerous studies since.
Early theories suggested stitches were caused by a lack of oxygen to the diaphragm, or by the jiggling of ligaments connecting abdominal organs to it.
But those theories have gone out of favour because evidence doesnāt support them, says Dr Morton, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Science at Avondale College of Higher Education in NSW.
Dr Morton used to suffer badly from stitches himself in his earlier athletic career as an ironman, triathlete and surf lifesaver.
This first-hand suffering turned into something of a scientific obsession with stitches.
He was the author of eight of the 14 key studies he reviewed in a recent article on Exercise Related Transient Abdominal Pain (ETAP, the medical name for stitches) in the journal Sports Medicine.
He says heās now ā99 per cent sureā that whatās really behind a stitch is an irritation of the membrane lining the abdominal cavity.
He also strongly suspects that what (and when) you eat and drink before you get active can raise or lower the odds of you getting a stitch.
āWeāve got no evidence of anyone dying from stitches, so in that regard, theyāre relatively benign,ā Morton says.
"But over the years Iāve had hundreds of emails from people saying āplease help me, Iāve got some big event coming upā.
"And I know plenty of people who say āI donāt want to go for a run because I always get a stitchā.
āSo what are stitches doing from a public health perspective?ā
7 tips to avoid a stitch
Dr Morton has some tips to reduce the odds of a stitch next time you get active.
Thereās most evidence for these:
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Make sure youāre well hydrated by drinking lots of water in the 12 hours before you exercise.
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In the two hours immediately before, drink only small amounts so you stay hydrated, but your stomachās not bloated (and therefore less likely to press on the lining of your abdominal cavity).
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Donāt eat large volumes of food for at least two hours before exercise (perhaps even three to four hours before if youāre especially prone to stitches).
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Avoid very sugary drinks, such as fruit juice or soft drinks, before or during your exercise. Sugary foods like lollies may also be a problem.
Thereās less evidence for these, but theyāre still worth a try:
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Get fitter: Some evidence suggests the fitter you are, the less frequently you get stitches. Exactly why isnāt understood. But plenty of very fit athletes are still plagued by them.
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Strengthen your core: Strong trunk muscles, especially the deeper abdominal muscles, the transverse abdominus, may help ward stitches off, probably by offering more support to abdominal organs. Pilates and exercises using a stability ball may help.
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Improve your posture: āWe havenāt yet done intervention studies to see if changing peopleās posture makes a difference but we have anecdotal reports of people whoāve done that and itās been helpful.ā A physiotherapist may be able to help.
If you do get a stitch, you might find the following techniques can bring relief:
- Deep breathing
- Pushing or stretching the affected area
- Bending over forward.
In lab experiments, stitches generally disappeared 45 seconds to two minutes after stopping activity. Some people can still feel sore a couple of days later though.
I think after that fine display of long-distance running any prospective wing-back deciding which wing-forward to mark would do a quick u-turn towards the other wing-forward to mark the one that isnāt @Bandage.
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He says heās now ā99 per cent sureā that whatās really behind a stitch is an irritation of the membrane lining the abdominal cavity.
Up your bollix Aertel.
a fucking rope. you need a running backpack. It helps store your hat, glasses, sweets, spare socks and runners, watch charger, lunch, foldable drink bottle, insoles, jocks and house keys.
anyone not with one of these is just a mug.
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I found your clench the fist on the opposite side of the stich trick to work well.
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I read previously that to get rid of a stitch you should breathe out when the leg on the same as side as the stitch is on the ground. Or maybe it was breathe in.
Hopefully that helps.
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The Limerick hurlers must get awful stitches when they win a free.
The flipbelt is a great addition. Itās literally changed my life.
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I just bought another pair of trail shoes and a new running t shirt 
Great respect for the TFK tradition of posting your footwear and flooring together 
Would you wear it going about your day now as well.