OTC drugs during race?

Most people I know don't take anything during a race.

In my case specifically, I take Coumadin/Warfarin because I have a mechanical heart valve.  Because of possible interactions, I can't take ibuprofen and only limited amounts of acetaminophen.   I'm 62.  Rest, stretching and active recovery seem to work well for me to keep the aches & pains at bay.

Mark  

In addition to the concerns shared by Marc regarding the use of NSAID's by endurance athletes, I generally discourage the use of any pain medication during training or racing.  Pain is our body telling us that we're damaging it.  Masking that with pain medication can result in pushing through when we should back off, making an injury worse.

Most people I know don't take any such medications during a race either. And actually I don't know anyone in person who does. Only a very few at most over message boards.

I used to have bad knee pain from running, thought it was arthritis.  About two years into triathlon I started taking aspirin regularly for the pain.   After about 12 months of that I thought I had a bad recurring stomach virus, over a 3 week period.   I was loosing about a pound a day because I couldn't eat or drink much.   Ended up in the ER and after an ultra sound found out I had a sizable ulcer.  Had to go to a GI doc for surgery to have it removed.  Told me to stop taking aspirin.

When training and racing IMs my last two years of tri racing, I took Alleve daily. I would come off it about 2 weeks before my IM and then take it race day. Now I'm on prescription anti inflammatory. I can no longer run and walking to keep up with my family out and about is a challenge.

Your body tells you how it is feeling, and mine has said no more. I play soccer now and hope to start riding for fun. I miss the joy and challenge of triathlons but my knee is unable to the task any longer.

I don't take medicine during races.  

In fact I was in car wreck last July that landed me in the ER room where I was unconscious part of the time and half my family thought I was dead.  I suffered a severe concussion so I don't remember any of the accident and only a few minutes of the emergency room (ER). One of the few things I remember in the ER is a nurse asking me if she could get me anything for the pain.  

The first thought that went through my head is that Marathons hurt worse than this and I do them for recreation so why would I need anything for the pain.  

My second though was of the Demerol that I was given in an ER room when I dislocated my elbow at a Wrestling tournament when I was in high school.  They had put me on Morphine when I had knee surgery from another wrestling injury a year earlier.  The pain was just about as bad with the morphine as without and the morphine made me groggy so I stopped taking it and just learned to cope with the pain knowing that it was all for my own good.  The Demerol that I got in the ER room with my separated elbow however was a different experience from the Morphine.  It made me happy, very happy, and the pain subsided.

 After weighing my pain tolerance and how happy Demerol makes me feel I told the nurse that although Demerol is great that I really didn't want to take anything for the pain.  She insisted that she could get me Demerol, but I declined to take anything for the pain.  I had trained my body to cope with pain and was able to handle things better without a pain killer than being doped with a drug.  

So...although we are in a drug driven society that superscribes 10 times as many drugs today as was done 25 years ago and that now has more Walgreen, CVS, and other drugstores in many areas than they do gas stations or fast food restaurants, I feel that we are better off to NOT medicate our self with OTC drugs.  If we mask the pain without learning to deal with it we could be missing opportunities to change our poor form to a better form that not only prevents over use and injury but also could make us more efficient.  

OTC drugs also could have unintended side effects that could outweigh their benefits. My high school men's cross country team had won 7 consecutive 5A state championships prior to my first year on the team.  The coach told use of one team that did NOT win the state title.  They had been ranked #1 in the state all year and were untouchable, but the night before the state meet one of the guys on the team convinced the rest of the team to take a pain killer thinking it would help them all run faster.  It backfired on them.  I am not a doctor and don't know know how drugs works on the body or why taking a pain killer hurt their performance, but our coach used this example to warn us to never try anything new on race day because that year a team that should have been state champions had there worst race of the year at the state meet and lost the title.  So for me...no drugs.  I don't even take caffeine. 

Yep, there are always exceptions.  That's why I said "generally discourage" rather than make a blanket statement that they should never be used.

There are rarely definitive answers to health, fitness, and athletic questions.  My signature line is meant as a reminder of that.

"red wine pee" crikey!! I'd have freaked out big time.

Has anyone any experience using sporty legs? (Calcium-136mg, Magnesium-68mg, Vitamin D-68IU, and Lactate-1115 mg)

I'm just quoting this so the readers can see it a second time.  It's a serious issue not to be messed with.