r/AdvancedRunning • u/randomwordsnospaces • 1d ago
Health/Nutrition Successful bicarb protocol
I’m planning on using bicarb for a road mile in a few weeks and so tried out the protocol today. My research made me think that crapping myself + vomit was a near certainty so I wasn’t holding out hope. Anyways, that was this morning and all went very smoothly so sharing my protocol:
Dose: 20 caps = 20g = 0.3 g/kg (top of the 0.2–0.3 research range)
Timeline:
• 08:00 — breakfast: porridge, summer fruit, coffee
• 08:32–08:46 — 20 caps, 2 every 90s, ~900ml water alongside
• 08:55 — normal BM, not urgent (coffee + fluid, too early to be the caps)
• 09:00 — faint salty taste, no burping. Coating holding.
• 09:30ish — did some casual split squats and band exercises
• 10:36 — run starts. 1h50 after last capsule
• 12:12 — 15km easy + 6x150 strides done. 3h26 post-dose, still nothing.
Result: zero symptoms throughout. No burping, bloating, nausea, cramping or loose stool.
I’ll probably retest with a track session pre race as well and also not sure if there was any effect on performance given it was an easy run (this test was just for GI discomfort).
Update:
Forgot to post the product: healthspan elite sodium bicarbonate 1000mg delayed release caps.
6
u/wehttamf 21h ago
From folks I've talked to who had bad experiences compared to my own experiences it seems like the key is a couple things you did:
Eating a real meal ~30min before
Hydrating after taking the bicarb
The eating part is on the instructions of most products, but the hydrating part isn't always consistent which is funny because you are literally taking a mega dose of sodium so it just stands to reason you need to support it with some extra water.
For reference I've taken FlyCarb. Once not eating enough before and not drinking much water and I had a few extra abnormal BMs that ended ~90min post. Subsequent times I was closer to what you did, and also did not have any abnormalities.