The Importance of Hydration

For those of you who have read A Curious Incident of a Dog in the Nighttime, you will appreciate this a lot.  If you have not, please read it, it will help you understand the ever growing amount of autistic individuals living here on earth.





In the ideal world, we would all, runners and non-runners alike, would drink 8 oz. of water for every hour we are not sleeping.  However, the world is not ideal, this is not a utopia so we must make due and/or suffer and deal with the consequences.

Why?

The body ranges from 70-80% water and you need water for all of your bodily functions to occur.  For instance, with pooping, in order for you to go to the bathroom you need to have enough water in your system such that when the waste passes through your digestive system it does not get stuck.  Your body naturally absorbs water in the large intestine and if it doesn’t have much to work with, it cannot suck it out and use it for things like circulation. The “stuckness” for lack of a better term can lead to many things (i.e. the consequences):

1. Constipation (not pooing)

2. Runner’s Trots  (needing to poo somewhere about 3.5 miles from your house –that is if you are going at an 8-8:30/min pace—possibly closer if you do not run that fast or farther if you are a champion--- both leads to the dire need to poo without a toilet and resorting to pooing in less comfortable situations like the woods, on the side of the woods, in your pants, and hopefully not violently in someone’s bushes)
3. Malabsorption (though you are eating enough, you are not getting the nutrients you need, because they cannot be absorbed in the small or large intestine, depending on the nutrient, because of most likely #1)
4. Cramping: when you are challenging your body to work harder than it is used to and it needs to metabolize food, water and electrolytes faster than normal

a.     Very common when you are challenging your body to run faster, get back into shape ---otherwise known as increase your current level of fitness

b.     Will not be too severe if you yield to the following principles

                                               i.     Avoid high CHO/ fatty foods close to exercise because they take longer to digest

                                              ii.     Make sure you drink enough water

1.     It is different for everyone but you need to figure how you best function

2.     If you are thirsty, more sore than normal, feeling beat up, you probably need more water to help with circulating out the acidic waste and bringing in the nutrients necessary for tissue repair and maintenance

                                            iii.     Be aware of how much you sweat

                                            iv.     Be aware of particular foods that give you cramps and those that don’t (write it down if you don’t remember things well)
5. Urinary Tract Infections (you are not peeing enough and some how the bacteria from your poo has gotten near your urethra and though pee is sterile, you are not peeing enough to clear it out.)

a.     Side note: Guys do not have this problem as much because they have a penis and it isn’t as close to their anus. A short urethra is a microbial disadvantage  when preventing disease.

6.     There are other conditions I am sure, but these are those I have the most experience with so I am going to stick with them

NOTE: Spread the water out over time, do not drink a gallon at once or else, you will have to deal with #6.

6. Needing to pee with no bathroom in sight:  The woods works fine.  Pop a squat.  Pee on a tree. The choice is yours.

Dehydration

The much more serious side effect of not drinking enough clear liquids

If you have been drinking water, 8 oz for every hour you are awake, you are doing well, if and only if you do not drink just as much coffee, tea and alcohol, it is hot out or you just sweat a lot for no apparent reason and give showers to those running next to you.

This will compound the effect of drinking or not drinking enough water because coffee, tea, soda and alcohol are all diuretics (they make you pee on command, whether you like it or not).  So if you are like myself and dream of having coffee every morning just because you love the taste, watch your coffee consumption.  You may be peeing out all the good nutrients you once had because you are being forced to expel them.  With alcohol, make sure that you balance your alcohol consumption with your water intake.  With a diuretic you are making an effort to dehydrate yourself, so minimize their consumption so you have electrolytes in your system to help with important functions like muscle contraction. 

Dehydration can be the result of many different things:
Being busy and not taking time to drink water throughout the day and claiming that you do not have time.

a.     Lack of availability of water (this can easily be fixed by purchasing a reusable aluminum water bottle and/or Nalgene)

b.     Claiming that you do not like the taste of water, which then at some point will lead you to be dehydrated during a race and you will learn, the hard way, unfortunately. You may even stop and ask your teammates/friends for water during a race because you are thirsty.

2. Being stressed out
a.     In order to calm down or get going, you participate in one of the following:

                                               i.     Have multiple cups of coffee in the morning to wake up

                                              ii.     Have multiple beers, drinks whatever to de-stress from work

                                            iii.     Have multiple sodas to distress and/or feed your sugar addiction

                                            iv.     You run.

                                              v.     You run hard everyday and feel that suffering is the only option.

                                            vi.     You don’t let your body recover, because again you feel at some deep level that suffering is the only answer, it’s not; only if you want life to be hard and suck all the time.

3.     It is hot/humid out

a.     Your body needs to work harder to keep your bodily reactions occurring at a standard temperature so you sweat as a result, a natural cooling mechanism.

4.     You are a sweater

a.     Your body needs to work harder to cool your body down because you are generally overheated

Water is one of our best resources and luckily in the US its free!  So remember the H20!

Heidi