PEE QUESTION
frogmanrn
Posts: 14
Hi, I am training for a century ride and doing 4+ hour rides at the moment, I am currently drinking 750ml of water or sports drink a hour but find im needing stop for a leak every hour or less which is frustrating and my pee is really clear is this to much?, how much does everyone else drink or need to stop to drain the main vein??
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Drink to thirst. Unless you ignore your thirst for a long while, thirst is the best way to judge how much water you need. Until you get way out of whack, your body knows what it needs.
If you wait to drink until you're thirsty and wait to eat until you're hungry you will probably
end up dehydrated and bonked. Neither being much fun. I drink until I need to pee, then back off a bit. On really long rides I tend to eat something ever 20 miles or so. Do not wait until you're hungry. By then it's usually too late. I tend to drink bunches on hot days or at high altitude and if I have to stop to pee, so be it. Much better option than needing the Life Squad boys to fill you with an IV drip because you were dehydrated. And remember that
if you suddenly stop sweating you may be in big trouble. Sure sign of dehydration. Drink
up.
Dennis Noward
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I know us oldies probably used not to drink enough, but I do feel the pendulum has swung a ridiculous amount too far the other way. I still don't bother with anything at all unless I am out more than two hours.
Unless you were going REALLY slowly - that is WAY too little to drink. It will affect your performance and isn't good for your kidneys. I've ended up pissing out blood because I didn't drink enough on long rides.
I used to drink a bottle an hour - now I drink a lot less. But 100 miles on 500ml is wrong. Don;t care what anyone says.
If there's a cafe stop on a group ride of the same length I'll probably fill up the 750ml bottle that I've drunk, but I probably won't drink it all, so I'll have at most 2.25Litres (excluding what I drink in the cafe).
It's never done me any harm. I've never experienced any ill effects.
(I do however drink loads and loads and loads of water/liquids when I'm not riding, so when I start riding I'm already really well hydrated when I start.)
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Surely though, the amount of liquid taken on and water passed depends on a couple of factors:-
How hard you're riding.
The weather/temperature/wind speed.
I find when riding steady I willl have to stop for a leak, but when riding hard I don't 'cos I'm sweating that much more.
The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.
I'm fairly settled now at 500ml/hour - fill the two 750ml bottles and aim to get through them at a fairly constant rate over 3 hours. One mistake I used to make was that the energy drinks (or just a malto/fructose/salt solution) tends to make my mouth feel a little dry - what I thought was thirst was just the sugary salty crappyness you get from SIS and the like. Also I had a tendency to take on water in big hits - 250ml every 30 minutes rather than spreading it out over the hour. I've found that drip-feeding (one mouthful every 10 minutes) means that I dont need to stop anywhere near as much as taking on a load of water every 30 or 40 minutes.
jon
Hungry, perhaps, thirsty, very unlikely. All that "start drinking before your thirsty" advice has been pretty much debunked following the worrying number of deaths it caused amoung the running community.
The body is extremely tuned to its need for water, and drinking more than required - ie not drinkking to thirst but drinking to some plan that says how much you should drink - risks over-hydration, which has just as many risks associated with it.
Use your common sense and air on the side of caution but try cutting back the fluid a bit and see how you feel.
I'll prob go through 1500ml on a Century - unless its really hot.
If you look at marathon runners - they'll be working hard for 2 or 3 hours and take on very little fluid. The body can cope with working slightly dehydrated.
The last guy to die in the London Marathon suffered from hyponatremia - he drank litres of water.
Whats right for one person may not work for the next person.
But clearly - if you are peeing loads - just drink less on the next ride and see how you get on ? Simples eh ?
The studies were based on weight loss, and an assumption that the weight lost was all water, and that weight loss was bad. Completely ignoring or forgetting about all the calories that were burnt to actually do the work. It's a very common statement, that is backed by many sports drinks sponsored statements.
There's a the Sports Scientists review of the science here which is well worth a read.
I stand corrected, sort of, I think.You bring up good points.
Dennis Noward
400ml per hour seems average for me and or other runs I find I dont need to pee...
I know what you're saying but just one question(sort of). If the body is "extremely
tuned to it's need for water" why would any runner and or cyclist become dehydrated
when water is readily available? Are they just not listening to their bodies cries for water? FWIW I have a friend who had to drop out of the Ironman because he was dehydrated, yet he told me that he never felt thirsty.
Dennis Noward
Firstly I'd wonder how the dehydration conclusion was arrived at? It's a common catch all "diagnosis" for many failures in events, when the reality for the body refusing to continue more was something different (energy deficit or whatever)
As I said before dehydration is often diagnosed from bodyweight reduction, but ignores the mass of the calories that are burnt during exercise, instead focusing on an equivalent amount of weight loss from an individual not exercising. The trap of comparing in exercise humans with humans at rest (if you're breathing fast, and your heart rate is 170 you may be very very sick, or you may just be cycling hard up a hill...)
However, yes people do ignore thirst unfortunately - and in the ironman, they may well have the first 90 minutes or more of exercise unable to drink, and then live with that deficit, but still drinking to a "plan" that they worked out on training rides that didn't have the couple of hours of forced not drinking before it.
Like anything, there are also people on the extremes who are less sensitive to thirst than is normal, maybe he is one of those. The athletes I know who've dehydrated enough to harm their performance, all ignored their thirst mechanism "Oh I'm feeling good, I don't want to slow down at this aid station to get a drink, I'll get it later".
Also I do think that once you've gone beyond simple thirst, and are feeling really rough, your signals are confused and you start reaching out to all sorts of things, and start taking in other foods/drinks or whatever which then effect your bodies ability to absorb fluid, even as it's trying to rehydrate.
It may be that drinking to thirst isn't quite right, you perhaps should drink a little more - but determining that more you would need to know more about the sweat rates etc. that is happening in an actual event, and likely be more individual. As I said above, the "drink more and replace your bodyweight" encouragement has led to more deaths than dehydration did before.
Very, very true, as I found out to my expense last week. Never going out under prepared again. Never! :x
His wife said his kidneys had shut down or had started to or were in the process of it.
Something along those lines. And he had stopped sweating. He is, by his own admission, not really all that good at drinking enough or when he "should" and that's not good when it comes to a hot 10 or 12 hour affair. I do see your points though.
Dennis Noward
I think I go through about 500ml an hour. 1 bottle 750ml is usually enough for about 35-40 miles for me. Over that, and especially hilly or hot rides it's two bottles, plus food.