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I learned this week that I was waking up multiple times in the middle of the night with a scratchy throat and an increasingly worsening headache due to dehydration.
I almost never feel thirsty anymore but given my level of running and lifting I should be drinking about 100 ounces of water a day and I was coming nowhere near that. As a corollary, I did a long run on Saturday and made sure to drink water before and actively during and it was the first time I finished one without a headache.
Who knew? Not me!
The individual human body + brain unit is usually very good at telling you how much to drink without much difficulty, but some stuff can throw this out of balance. Excess exercise absolutely can (this is what sports drinks were for!). Getting older can too, and for the elderly it starts to get to be a real problem.
An ego flattering example: getting tougher, makes it easier to ignore signals to drink (and then...problems).
Monitoring the color of your urine is a good way to outsource for most people.
Makes sense.
I've spent a lot of time camping in the desert (re: festivals) and the common recommendation was to drink water until you piss clear. That's a good heuristic but my pee hadn't been particularly dark.
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My problem that I've discovered is a bad headache like clockwork every Tuesday morning. Except on holiday weekends, then it's Wednesday morning. Pretty sure it's going from 2-3 days not staring at a computer screen to a full day at work staring at a stupid screen. Breaks and walking around don't seem to help. Wish it were as easy to fix as drinking more water (the obvious and simple solution is quitting my job, but that's not easy).
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Moving from India to Scotland made me dramatically less thirsty. I used to gulp down at least a liter or two in the former, in the latter, I can get through a whole day with maybe 3 or 4 glasses of water. Well, I guess I can assume that my internal hydration detectors are reasonably well calibrated.
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How long was your run on Saturday?
My water bottle is 750-1000ml and I will always refill it at least once during a gym session, even if I'm only doing strength training and no cardio. I can't even imagine trying to exercise without drinking lots of water.
I've noticed I don't sweat much during strength training, and not very much during cardio. I can get away with maybe 300ml intake within an hour without feeling the need for more.
I don't sweat nearly as much during strength training as I do during cardio, but I still get very thirsty very quickly.
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16 miles
I had a 12oz glass of water with salt in the morning and brought 60oz with me.
So more than a half-marathon? And you used to run that without drinking any water on the way?
Depending on the temperatures one runs in, that doesn't strike me as obviously too little. I used to live in a very hot place and do sunrise runs of up to 15 miles without carrying water.
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well, when you put it that way it sounds kind of stupid
I just never felt thirsty :/
I'm not even making fun of you, I'm just amazed that you even attempted it without. I think I physically could not run more than 10 km (~6.2 miles) without drinking a lot of water. If I tried running a half-marathon without water I'm sure I'd just collapse.
Yeah. No matter how much research I do on running and lifting I feel like I miss basics like this all of the time. I would feel like shit after a run without water but I guess I thought it was normal? Just pain that I need to push through? Ho hum.
It took me a very long time to get better at running economy during races, like not flaming out immediately in the first mile and a half during a 5k.
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My bottle is more like 500ml and I usually don't finish it during the workout. It seems like I get a lot less sweaty than the soaked-wifebeater kind of guys you can see at the gym. Don't know if I'm not giving it my all or that's just how my body works.
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