Race Hydration Deep Dive

This week I’d like to go little bit deeper on the race hydration topic.  I got some feedback that I wasn’t quite clear.  I’ll try to be clearer by doing what engineers do best, pile up more information in the hopes that a really big pile of unclear information will somehow create a small slice of lucidity.

I also realize that like every other grumpy old guy I’ve got a different frame of reference and have to do a better job of putting myself in other runners shoes.  If they wear shoes. My frame of reference rightly or wrongly is from 20 years of training and racing marathons.  I’ve forgotten what it is like to be running that first race and experiencing the overwhelming physical sensations of those first couple long runs.

I remember clearly my first marathon.  It was a warmish day.  I thought I had trained well but in reality my training was laughable.  In the first five mile I took a big glass of Gatorade from a water table (they weren’t called aid stations then).  It made me sick to my stomach.  I decided I just wouldn’t drink or eat anything after that.  By mile 17 I was hallucinating.  I don’t remember finishing, but I did.

I learned many lessons that day and one of them was that you have to fuel and hydrate to race a marathon or you are probably going to crash and do the death shuffle.  After that first disaster of a marathon I started training for real and part of that training was drinking 16 to 24 oz of ½ strength Gatorade every 40 minutes. 

I figured out I could stomach it if I mixed it half strength.  I learned how to run carrying a bottle in one hand so I could constantly be pulling a few gulps of fluid every few minutes.  I trained and learned the specifics of how my body required hydration and fueling by long hours of practice.  I learned my machine.

Make no mistake I was 100% compulsive neurotic about having my bottles and mixtures right for every run. It was only later in my running career that I lightened up and was able to go with the flow and color outside the lines when it came to fueling and hydration.  Because eventually I learned my machine so well that I found where the edges were.

When I say “Drink when you’re thirsty”, what I mean in my head, is “Drink when you need to drink.”  I can do this because of my experience.  I know my machine well enough that I know when it’s time to take a pull off of the old water bottle.  That’s when ‘I’m thirsty’.  In order for others to heed that particular advice they have to run and train and race a whole bunch of miles to understand the requirements of their own machine. 

There’s a balance.  You can take in too much and make yourself sick. You can take in too little and make yourself sick.  It depends on your intensity, duration and the conditions.

I know my sweat rate under all different levels of effort and conditions.  I know when ‘I’m thirsty”.

Let’s unpack that ‘hydration’ box a bit and add some color, again from my frame of reference.  I’m not a medical professional of any kind.  My point of view is looking out from under an overwhelming pile of long miles over 40 years of running. 

What I really do believe is that people focus too much on what they eat and drink while racing.  If I look at what has the most impact on my race experience it is hands down the quality and volume of my training, not anything I put in my body.  I know it’s probably politically incorrect to say but the ‘quick fix’ is to train better.  Let me say that again.  “The biggest impact variable that you can control is the qualify and volume of your training.” 

There is a very common rule of thumb among marathoners that you should ‘always have your tank topped off’.  I think that’s a potentially dangerous message.  That ‘stay full’ will lead people to over-hydrate. 

One critical difference we have to take into account in this conversation is between running and racing.  When I race I’m running at or near my threshold, even in a marathon – I’ll be in zone 3-4 the whole race and the last 10k in zone 5-6.  That’s quite a high effort level and requires a fair amount of quality training to sustain.

If I’m racing I honestly won’t be able to keep up with hydration or fueling and will be fighting a losing battle.  I’ll finish the race down 5-8 pounds.  The trick when you’re racing is not to stay ‘topped off’, because at that level of intensity you cannot.  The trick is to limit the damage.  The trick is to get to the finish line before the plug get pulled.

If I’m racing I know I can’t keep up.  Instead I’m trying to stay close.  To do this I’m taking a slug of fluid out of my bottle (about a mouthful) every few minutes.  At room temperature, for me, at that effort level I’m going to be taking 20-24 ounces of fluid every 40 minute to an hour. 

Do the math.  For a 3+ hour marathon that’s 60 – 80 ounces of fluid or 4-5 pounds of water I’m consuming in a race, and I’m still down 5-8 pounds at the finish. 

If it’s colder I’ll need less.  If it’s much hotter than room temperature I‘ll need more, but I’m probably not going to go for it in a race where the temperature is higher than 75-80 because I’m just not acclimated or designed for that.

I’ll supplement my bottles with whatever they are handing out if I feel, based on race conditions at that point in time, I need more or less.  If I get to within a couple miles of the finish line I may even toss my bottle because at that point, whatever I eat or drink is not going to have an impact on my finish time.  I’m better off lightening my load, putting my head down and gutting it out.

But that’s racing.  You may not be racing.  You may be running at a much lower intensity.  And, I know I sound like an elitist, but that’s not my point.  My point is that 3 hours of intense racing is much different than 5 hours of intense racing or 6 hours of not-so-intense run/walking. 

For mid-or-back of the packers it’s a different and more dangerous challenge.  You may or may not be racing at the same intensity, but you’re out on the course much longer and may or may not have done the level of quality training.  The stakes are higher. 

I think these folks really need to be careful and stay focused on what they are eating and drinking. I would caution against ‘topping off the tank’ because this can easily be mistranslated as forcing fluids.  It’s a much bigger risk.  The 3+ hour marathoner is going to be back in the hotel room before problems with hydration manifest.  The 5+ hour marathoner may have these problems manifest on course.

The best advice I can give is to train well, whatever that means for you and your ability.  As you go through your training you’ll figure out when you NEED to drink.  You’ll figure out when you NEED to eat.  And, yeah, you may learn that by going too far in one direction and learning that hard lesson.

Finally, I want to address one big, hairy, maybe controversial thing that I’ve learned.  It’s ok to go into deficit.  If you train your body to expect a bit of deprivation it gets better at husbanding its resources in response.  I know this sounds antithetical to some people but you can go into fluid and fuel deficits in your training and your body will get better at absorbing the stress, working in it and recovering. 

Yes, what I’m saying is you can train the process of becoming a bit dehydrated and recovering.  This is not a beginner protocol.  This is only something you can do if you’ve got the miles under your belt and know your machine. 

The stern warning here is that you should be familiar with the symptoms of serious dehydration.  If you stop sweating.  If you start getting chills.  If your heart rate spikes uncontrollably.  If you’re seriously nauseous or dizzy.  If you get these symptoms you need to stop and get help. 

Ultra endurance athletes are also privy to another secret that no one ever talks about.  It is possible to recover from dehydration and fueling deficits in a long race.  You’ll see these guys and ladies laying on the ground unable to move.  They’ll patiently load fluids and fuel, get up and keep going 20-30 minutes later.  Because they have trained their bodies, their machines on how to do this.

For example: when I rode the Wilderness 101 mountain bike race I screwed up and was caught without water for over an hour of peddling through technical trails at midday in the July sun.  It wasn’t pretty.  But I was able to recover and finish that race, because it was a 12 hour race and I know my machine. 

Thin k of it as just another training element and just another tool to learn as you mature through your running adventure.

That was fun. Thanks for indulging my uber-geek-fest about hydration.