How Do You Hydrate?

Some stats for a change.  All reflect my average running as of late.

Time of Day: 6:30 AM

Weather: 77*, 89% humidity, cloudy

Duration:  1 hour 8 minutes 4 seconds

Distance: 8 miles

Average Pace: 8:30/mile

I swear I come home from each run wondering if I have ever sweat so much in my life.  I don’t have a scale at home, but sometimes I wish I did purely so I could weigh myself before and after running.  High humidity means a lot of that sweat stays on my body instead of evaporating, so I’m a nasty, hot mess when I get home.

I rarely drink water on my runs.  There are water fountains along my usual routes that I can stop at if necessary, but I only use them on very long runs.  Here’s what I do:

  • Drink a big glass of water before I leave
  • Drink a big glass of water when I get back
  • Drink coffee with breakfast (counterintuitive?)
  • Continue to drink lots of water during the day, but I don’t keep track and drink only according to thirst.

After long runs I might drink a Gatorade or throw a Nuun tablet into my water, but I don’t do the Camelpaks or fuel belts, etc.  Some days I do great in the heat, others not so much.  I like to think I’m training my body to become more efficient, although I don’t even know if that’s possible. 

Also, I don’t worry about a sodium-laden meal now and then.

How do you hydrate?

Related posts:

  1. Where Have I Been? Did you miss me?  Did you think something was wrong? ...
  2. Daily Run: One More Time of Day: 6:30 AM Weather: 77*, 100% humidity, gross Duration:  1 hour 37 minutes 12...
  3. Daily Run: You Call This Fall? Time of Day: 6:30 AM Weather: 77* with 89% humidity when I...
  4. Daily Run: New Morning Time of Day: 6:55 AM Weather: 75* with 94% humidity Duration:  1 hour 7...
  5. Daily Run: At Least a Little Time of Day: 6:50 AM Weather: 66*, 100% humidity, sunny Duration: 46...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

14 comments to How Do You Hydrate?

  • I actually don’t drink before or after running. I wake up and go. I drink a lot during the day though. Lol sorry that’s not much help…

  • Sometimes I take my hand held though when it is really hot out and that helps.

  • i sweat soooooooooooo much but despite that i manage to be overhydrated. lol. my pee is clear pretty much all day. i drink a lot of water. and tea. and now i drink coffee in the morning, too. good thing i don’t have a job that prevents frequent bathroom breaks :)

    do you ever use anything like emergenC or nuun or anything like that? i go off/on using them. i tend to like them and if we have them i use them (we have emergenC right now).

  • i don’t. oops. i am such a terrible runner! especially because i KNOW i easily lose 2 lbs during my summertime runs

  • I only hydrate during long runs, and only when it’s hot (or someone is passing out water. It’s laziness more than lack of thirst that motivates me). And very seldom do I drink anything but water before/during. Although during my last run I drank diluted Gatorade, and I think it helped. I sweat a whole lot, but I think it’s okay unless you go into the run dehydrated.

  • Amy

    According to my people (haha) training in the heat has a similar affect to training at altitude. I don’t know if that’s true but I’m going with it!

  • I’m so bad! Sometimes, I carry water. Sometimes, I stop. Most of the time, I just run without.

  • For normal runs, I drink coffee and some water before I leave and water when I get back. I get pretty thirsty on hot days when I run for more than an hour, but I drink a bunch of water and usually one Propel mix with water when I get back. On long runs (like more than 1.5 hours), I take my Camelbak.

  • I keep a large glass of water by my nightstand, and the first thing I do when I wake up is chug it before hitting the road. This does me fine for a standard run, but I’m really awful about hydration on longer runs, which frequently comes back to haunt me in weather like this.

  • Justy2003

    I try to remember to drink water throughout the day. Some days I’m super thirsty, so it’s not difficult. But I always drink a glass before my run, no water during (unless it’s long and/or super hot), then chug water when I get home. Speaking of which…I think I’ll go grab a glass now.

  • After moving to FL, I realized that I had to start taking salt tablets because I was drinking so much water all the time I was flushing my system out

  • Monica C.

    I rarely drink before a run.

    During my long runs in the winter, I may stop once or twice for water, max.

    In the summer? Here in Dallas? Especially now, when I am trying to build a “base”? My long runs consist of running from fountain to fountain. :(

    For short runs in the summer, lately, I have been drinking cold Gatorade or water right afterwards to try to cool my body down so I can stop sweating so much before I get in the shower.

    I always drink water – room temperature – throughout the day.

  • Depending on the conditions, I hydrate fairly often. As we are living in Houston-like weather this summer, I seem to stop almost every 4 miles since there are fountains everywhere in the park. Usual plan is:

    Pre-run: couple of sips of G2
    Post-run A: any intense workout or run for 1+ hours I’ll mix up and swig Endurox as I have trouble eating immediately after a hard run.
    Post-run B: cappuccino
    Daily: big water bottle on my desk at the jobby gets refilled constantly.

  • I don’t usually drink while running unless I happen to stumble upon a water fountain (the closest is about five miles away…) unless it’s SUPER hot and I take a water bottle with me, but that’s rare. Otherwise I just drink some when I wake up and then tons when I get home….and I try to drink throughout the day but it’s hard with my job.

    I’m a big fan of coffee as well…

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>