The running boom of the s saw races for perhaps only dozens of well-trained club athletes evolve into the present day mass-participation events for many thousands. There has also been a trend for contemporary marathon runners to drink more than their counterparts in the s and s. You were liable to be disqualified if you drank before six miles. I was more interested in sponging down with water in marathons than drinking.
When Abebe Bikila won the and Olympic marathons he drank nothing; nor did the London marathon winner Mike Gratton; and when Ron Hill won the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games marathon in he drank nothing and lost 3.
By contrast, Catherina McKiernan — London marathon winner, European cross-country champion and four-time world cross-country silver medallist drank often during races. And when Rio Olympic marathoner and national cross-country champion Mick Clohisey spoke to The Irish Time s, he was training hard for the current World Championships in London. I had stomach problems, which may have been due to drinking Lucozade that was too heavy for my stomach. Clohisey has also started using more dilute electrolyte powders and soluble tablets in his long training runs, which he tolerates better.
Both McKiernan and Clohisey advise to start a marathon well hydrated. You need to sip some water after taking a gel to wash it down and help absorption. Nonelite, recreational runners spend more time on their feet, and where fluid intake is concerned, sustained over-drinking can cause the potentially fatal exercise-associated hyponatremia EAH , which occurs by drinking abnormally large volumes of fluid during exercise.
The condition was first reported in by a team led by Prof Timothy Noakes of the University of Cape Town, and there have been at least 14 documented fatalities and 1, recorded near-fatalities worldwide. By contrast, no competing athlete has died of dehydration. The organ most affected is the brain since the skull limits its capacity to swell. In EAH with encephalopathy, if the brain swells excessively, the pressure rises, first causing loss of consciousness, often associated with seizures, leading ultimately to death from respiratory arrest.
It was a cynical method to increase product sales. Sadly, promoting an abnormal and unphysiological behaviour — drinking to stay ahead of thirst — produced the novel disease, EAH, with tragic consequences. All the evidence, then as now, shows that drinking to thirst is the only safe method during exercise. It is worth noting that: dehydration does not cause EHS. The condition is caused by an abnormal production of heat within the body, which overwhelms its heat-dissipating mechanisms, and results in the death of 20 per cent of reported cases as a result of heart failure or cerebral oedema.
This is another reason to be aware of your personal fluid requirements. According to ACSM guidelines, water is the most reasonable choice of drink for exercise lasting less than 60 minutes. For running events longer than 10 km, it is important to consider the availability of carbohydrate, which is an important fuel for exercising muscle. Therefore, it can be useful to consume fluids that contain carbohydrates before, during and after exercise as a simple and effective way of topping up your fuel stores.
Sweating causes the loss of electrolytes and water from the body. Most runners will benefit from including sodium and potassium-rich foods in their diet. A homemade sports drink is a convenient way providing fuel. Most well-run events will have water and feeding stations positioned at regular intervals. When possible familiarise yourself with route and position of water stations beforehand. It is recommended that you incorporate your hydration strategy into training, particularly during longer runs.
This may mean carrying a bottle or wearing a running bottle belt. This not only allows you practice your hydration strategy for your main event, it will accustom your gastric tolerance to fluids while running and prevent reduced performance due to dehydration during key training sessions. Casa et al. Cheuvront, S. Dehydration: Physiology, assessment, and performance effects. Comprehensive Physiology, 4 1 , — Hydration assessment of athletes. Gatorade Sports Science Institute, 18 2 , 1—5.
Institute of Medicine Scientific opinion on dietary reference values for water. EFSA J. Toni is a graduate of the University of Limerick where she completed her undergraduate degree in Sport and Exercise Science before graduating from with a MSc by research in She is currently undertaking PhD research in the area of long-haul travel and athlete performance.
Since she has supported a wide range of high-performance sports including; swimming, para-swimming, cycling, paracycling, athletics, para-athletics, rowing, canoe slalom, triathlon, badminton, cricket, modern pentathlon, boxing and sailing. She delivers this support in a variety of locations such as, in the laboratory, in the field, at training camps, pre-competition camps and major championships including three Paralympic Games.
Most off the shelf isotonic drinks contain a good ratio of carbohydrates to electrolytes. In addition to optimising absorption, for long ultra events drinking isotonic drinks with electrolytes and carbohydrates in with the same osmolarity as blood also helps you take on some of the energy you will need in liquid form, which is typically easier to absorb. Good isotonic drinks will deliver 20g of carbohydrate in a ration of fructose to maltodextrin with a good balance of sodium, potassium and magnesium and have a neutral pH.
Having a mixture of different types of carbohydrates optimises their absorption as the body is using different systems to absorb them; maltodextrin in particular is kinder on your stomach.
If we accept that you are not going to be able to replace all your fluids during your main event the key really is to make sure that you manage this to the best of your ability. The only way to truly feel confident that you can do this in a race situation is to have tried and tested your methods for staying optimally hydrated for you in training. Given that you are likely to have to carry your own fluids for sections if not all of your race, this also provides a good opportunity for training with additional weight of the fluids you will have to carry.
It will also help ensure that you carry enough liquid, but not too much. On the day of your race, do not try any new type of drink that you have not trained with.
It takes your body time to absorb liquids and rehydrate so having a good overall hydration strategy in every day life will ensure that you get to the start line hydrated and in shape to run your best. A good way to monitor your general hydration levels is to have a good look at your wee.
In well-hydrated adults wee is normally a light straw colour; the darker your wee is the more dehydrated you are. This can happen if you drink too much plain water over a short period of time, and women in the luteal phase of their cycle can be particularly vulnerable.
Unfortunately, the symptoms of hyponatremia confusion, nausea, headache, fatigue, muscle weakness are similar to those of dehydration so it can be easy to confuse the two. If the blood sodium levels continue to drop the condition can be potentially fatal. Drinking little and often and using electrolytes in your fluids during your race will reduce the risk of this condition.
An easy test to check if you are dehydrated can be to pinch the skin on your arm, if it does spring back in place you may well be dehydrated. Drinking fluids with electrolytes will help restore you, although in severe cases hospitals will attach a saline drip. The main thing is to make sure you drink small amounts regularly, that you take on some electrolytes as well, and that you try and test things in training so you know what will work best for you on race day.
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A way to turn the legs and activate the muscles and mitochondria which can promote recovery. The theory is that by weighing yourself naked before and after exercise, you can work out how much fluid you lose over a given timescale, which can inform your decision of how much to drink in future sessions. But it's not watertight.
Unless you know exactly what your sweat rate is for a given exercise intensity, temperature and humidity, you're guessing. So doing tests is unnecessary and potentially unsafe because of the risk of getting it wrong.
McKean agrees that sweat tests can oversimplify things. While the original aim of such tests was to prevent dehydration, McKean is more concerned about people overdrinking as a result of well-intentioned hydration strategies.
If drinking too much on the run simply meant spending too many precious minutes in the portable toilets, it wouldn't be such a big issue. But cases of exercise-associated hyponatraemia a potentially fatal condition in which blood levels of sodium are dangerously diluted as a result of too much water have risen significantly over the past two decades including a number of deaths in marathons and other endurance events , and the 'drink, drink and drink some more' message has undoubtedly been a contributing factor.
And if you thought that drinking an isotonic sports drink instead of water rendered you immune from the dangers of hyponatraemia, think again. But it's a moot point - the root cause is still overdrinking, and that's what should be avoided. The other reason Tucker is set against basing your fluid needs on anything other than thirst is that it's simply unnecessary. They had to be when our survival depended on running to hunt, when we would often be unable to drink.
Humans are delayed drinkers. We tolerate fluid loss really well, and we can drink later.
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