Unfortunately I have a couple of times – once with mildly amusing consequences.

This time was when I was rowing.

We’d been out for a really tough session in single sculls in the middle of summer – it involved doing 4×7 min flat out with 5 mins rest racing other boats.

An hour or so later we did a second session which was more gentle, zone 2 type of stuff.

Anyway halfway through I felt my legs harden and heart rate rise – a mild feeling of terror ensued as i was still 6k from home.

Somehow I managed to get back and knew I needed food.  I went searching through the rowing club and finally found a pain au chocolate with a bite missing – I had no choice (I didn’t even like croissants, oddly I do now)

Anyway I scoffed it down, eating round the bite.  I then found a bottle of lucozade and that went down too.  30 mins or so later I began to perk up.

The problem was that in those days 10+ years ago I was a nutritional novice.  That morning I had eaten two rounds of toast with margarine – simply not enough calories to sustain the session.

My general diet at the time was poor – although I didn’t think that then.  I ate mostly carbohydrate, very little veg, not enough protein for a athlete and consumed too much refined sugar.

I now know that if my body was better adapted to burning fat for fuel, I would have unlikely bonked on the low intensity session.  Regardless of this I would have still needed good levels of glycogen for the intense session to perform optimally.  I probably had just enough in my system that day from the previous nights food – most likely pasta.

This was a scary experience and one that I have thankfully not had since.

If you find that you often run out of energy then be sure not to just react by consuming more gels/drinks.

Instead think about how you can slowly change your body to become better at burning fat and keeping glycogen stores full with good quality sources of carbohydrate.

This is a simple but long process and you will feel and perform miles better if you see it through.

That way you wont have to go scavenging for half eaten croissants!