Posted: June 14, 2006

Athletics: Hydration / Liquids

By: David Holt

Liquids for Hydration

Mans’ most crucial nutrient is water.
Your body is 60 percent water, so stay hydrated: Dehydration decreases running performance and leads to cramps which can cause muscle injury.

* Start your exercise sessions well hydrated.
* Make drinking before runs a habit.
* Make drinking during your long runs routine.
* Drink before you feel thirsty during the day and during your runs.
* Continue re-hydration within minutes of finishing your runs.

After your run, find a cool spot and keep moving slowly while taking several refreshing drinks. Include carbohydrates and a little protein in the first half an hour post run. Do a few gentle stretches pre or post shower, then drink some more liquid while taking in calories to rejuvenate your muscles.

Lubricate and feed your muscles and they’ll be kind to you. Dehydration increases your risk of injury...to your running muscles and to your cardiac muscle!

Research shows that long distance performance is improved by taking in 200 calories per hour during the event. 32 ounces, or 4 full cups of Gatorade just happens to be 200 calories.

13 ounces of apple juice also supplies 200 calories, and it’s easier to carry a sufficient supply on long runs. Drink 5 ounces of water at the fountains on route, plus 3 ounces of juice each time, and you’ll take in your 200 calories per hour. One 24 ounce bottle with juice (plus a little salt) will cover you for two hours provided you find 8 sources of water: You don’t have to lug round 64 ounces of sports drink. You can use the same water sources twice on out and back routes.

Juices contain many antioxidants and vitamins, but sports drinks and goos do not. Goos also raise your heartrate as your body struggles to absorb the energy, which is not a good thing when you’re already working at close to 80 percent of your maximum heartrate at mile 15.

Taking in liquid plus a few hundred calories will not make up for poor preparation.

As dehydration increases muscle soreness and decreases athletic performance, drink persistently throughout the day. Keep water and other low calorie and low caffeine drinks close by. Then also drink:

More than sixteen ounces one hour before exercise and again half an hour before exercise. Drink smaller amounts 20 and 10 minutes prior to running. Include some electrolytes and calories via diluted juices, or by eating fruit. If you really must use sports drinks, go ahead. Drink based on your sweat loss rate every 10 to 15 minutes during the run.

Water loss from sweating depends on how much heat you need to get rid of, and can surpass 5 pints an hour at marathon running pace.

You can include a caffeine drink in the last 30 minutes pre-runs. Once you start running, its diuretic or urine stimulating powers are 95 percent lost. Caffeine, if taken 2 hours pre-running can give a short-term dehydrating affect, but when you factor in a 24 hour period is not dehydrating.

A cup of coffee 30 minutes pre running does not dehydrate you. The caffeine in one cup of coffee will not usually improve your running performance, unless of course you’re comparing your performance on one cup of coffee verses no liquid in the hour prior to running.

Caffeine does increase heartrate and the hearts irregularities while increasing your body temperature. All three are bad for runners.

Hyperhydrate pre training until your urine is almost clear. Your kidneys are quite talented; they will keep most of your electrolytes in your system. When you start training, consume some sodium and potassium in your liquid to help maintain your blood volume.

If you lose more than two percent of your body water, your blood gets thicker and your heart will have to work harder on each stroke. Your blood volume will be lower, so less blood will be pumped out of the heart with each beat. Fewer nutrients will get to your muscles, and you’ll be forced to slow down.

Blood flow to the skin also decreases and sweating decreases as your body tries to maintain body fluids in its central core. You’ll get even hotter because you can’t lose much heat from your body surface. Running performance declines.

According to a study in Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, dehydration also lowers your lactate threshold, which makes you feel exhausted earlier in a run.

* Dress sparingly and use white cloth; 
* Make small changes in exercise duration or intensity;
* Educate your system to cope with the heat; 
* Replace the fluid lost based on the “sweat test” using a variety of liquids.

But do all that is possible to avoid dehydration:

Plot your running circuits to include reliable sources of water. Making liquid or hydration stops every 2 to 3 miles or every 20 to 30 minutes will give you a chance to assess yourself while resting for a minute and stretching, and then to practice exercising with liquid in your stomach.

Death as we nurses say, is quite fatal. Overheating, or its usual precursor, dehydration, can be fatal or merely debilitating.
Training for more than one hour, or for half an hour longer than you are currently used to? Plan your fluid intake. Include carbohydrates and electrolytes in your liquid. The electrolytes or salts will decrease your risk of muscle cramps.

Liquid Food:
Eating to run before an event? Due to their faster gastric emptying time, liquid meals can be taken closer to training or race time than solid food.

A cup of skimmed or non-fat milk, a cup of vegetable juice, plus an orange zips out of the stomach pretty fast, especially if you add a pint of water. Combined, they provide about 38 grams of carbohydrate, plus over 10 grams of protein. Add these calories to the solid food of two hours prior, and your meals from yesterday and you’ve got plenty of fuel to burn. Liquid meals work well after training too; then munch on a bagel.

Drinking excessive amounts of simple sugars just before the event does not provide an energy boost. However, for a few people it can result in excessive blood sugar fluctuations. Those little energy drinks with caffeine are your enemy here. Sure they’ll wake you up a bit, but the marathon is not a sprint.

Many regular exercisers suffer from chronic dehydration, in fact, over half the people arrive at the gym dehydrated, putting themselves at higher risk for urinary tract infections, and decreased performance during any training let alone long events. Start off well hydrated and drink cranberry and apple juice every day to further decrease your urinary tract infection risk.

Staying Hydrated.
Thirst comes on too slowly to be a reliable indicator that it’s time to drink. Drink before you get the call to drink or you will already be dehydrated when you take your first drink. You’ll have missed the chance to drink during the first 60 minutes or so of your run or race, and never make up this fluid deficit.

Here’s a few drinking hints.
* Cold liquid is generally best: many studies show it’s absorbed faster than warm liquid. Most of us are more likely to drink cold liquids, especially if they taste good.
* Cold liquids give an additional cooling affect because your body uses its heat to warm the liquid to 98 to 100 degrees once it gets inside of you. But it needs to get inside of your body.
* Take more than four hours for the marathon? Walk through the aid station, pick up two cups of liquid and drink it down. The 15-second walk relaxes you to run the next two miles. If liquid stations are every mile, one full cup of liquid may be enough; it will give the 10 minute mile person 48 ounces intake per hour if the cups are 8 ounces each. Take two cups if they are smaller. Match intake to your sweat loss rate.
* Learn the art of the left hand pick-up. Most of us are right handed, so tables on the left can be easier to get at.
* Squeeze the top of the cup and cover the upper half to prevent spills. Snorting liquid is not the best way to get it into your circulatory system, so practice drinking from cups in training. Carry a large bore plastic straw if you have problems drinking at close to race pace.
* If the water cups are completely full, after checking to make sure that it is water, pour half of it over your head so that you can squeeze the cup and actually get the remaining four ounces inside of you.
* However, the basic rule is liquid goes inside of you first. It has a greater cooling affect than pouring it over yourself.
* Sports drinks should also go inside of you for the sugar to reach your muscles!
* Taking an energy gel pack? Consume it a quarter mile before the liquid station, then flush it with 8 to 12 ounces of water at the station.
* PS. Don’t try any new sports drinks on race day. Instead, try most of the sports drinks on the market prior to your race. Find out which ones will be on your race course. Used in moderation, sports drinks only give bad effects to a few sensitive people. Their fructose can make bowels hyperactive.

Don’t overhydrate with water or sports drinks in the second half or at the end of the marathon or you’ll risk hyponatremia. Include minimal sugar (200 calories per hour) and electrolytes each hour during the race, and consume a variety of liquids and fruit after the race.

Hand held water bottles change your running form. So: Carry your liquid bottle or bottles in a waist belt. It allows you to keep running while drinking. Stashing liquid on your running route works too. A one-third strength apple juice mixture with a pinch of salt in a 16 to 24 ounce plastic water bottle allows you to trash the bottle at the next bin. Tip: Place them in the freezer for an hour before you drive out to drop them off in shady spots close to known landmarks.

Gastric Emptying Rate.
To decrease the sloshing in your stomach from taking liquid on the run, you need to train your stomach. Well, actually, you’ll have to train your mind to feed your stomach the best stuff for you.
* Low fat liquid meals empty faster than fatty liquids.
* Nonfat, fruit flavored yogurt gives you liquid and sugar (about 42 grams of carbo).
* Smoothies empty faster than solid foods, especially if they are low fat smoothies.
* High water content fruits like bananas, grapes, oranges and the melon family are absorbed fast.
* Potassium is important to decrease cramps, so consider a half strength orange juice (4 ounces of OJ and 4 ounces of water) once an hour to get: roughly the same carbo concentration as a sports drink at 5.6 percent, a very nice 225 mgs of potassium, 7 mgs of sodium, plus, a gram of protein, 65 percent of your vitamin C needs, and a bit of thiamine, niacin, B6, Folate, magnesium, all of which are needed for energy metabolism, and the last 7 nutrients are not in sports drinks. Use sports drinks or other juices and water for your other 5 drinks each hour.
* Add a small salt sachet from fast food restaurants to give your fruit juices sufficient sodium.

In the 60 minutes post exercise, muscle cells suck up sugar and protein, provided you put the stuff in your stomach. Including protein in your first post exercise food increases the amount of glycogen in your muscles. A one to four ratio is all you need. The protein in your bread, plus a glass of non-fat milk or a yogurt will meat your needs. So will a balanced smoothie.

Meal in a can or in a plastic bottle make a great snack, especially if you chase them down with a piece of fruit or carrot sticks and a bottle of water.

Adapted from Best Marathons: Jog, Run, Train or Walk & Race Fast Marathons or your First Marathon.
Start from 20 miles per week and lay the foundations for comfortable marathons, or join the detailed programs at 30, 40, 50, and 60 or more miles per week for more serious marathon training. Includes extensive injury prevention and nutrition advice.

Specialized chapters on:
Anaerobic Threshold training, 
Interval training & VO2 maximum, 
Hill and resistance training,
Relaxation techniques,
Hydration and avoiding heat and cold dangers,

Buy the book from Amazon or send $14.95 (includes shipping) to get a signed copy from the author:
David Holt
3335 Richland drive # 4
Santa Barbara CA 93105

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