Hydrating a Runner's Body… Are You Doing It Right?

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Runners and hydration is a pivotal key to becoming a strong and healthy runner. For endurance athletes dehydrations can cause an increase in body temperature, heart rate, perceived exertion, and decrease performance as much as 25%.1 When you first start hydrating your body, your body does not actually retain the water until about 48 hours of drinking water. Hydration isn’t a quick fix it is a constant effort and cannot be ignored.

Keys to hydration: be sure and take in the proper amount of electrolytes versus water do not overload on water this can be very dangerous to your health and can also cause a decrease in performance. It’s important to test new hydration strategies to find exactly what works for you specifically. What I have learned through personal experiences is drinking half my body weight in water and then having roughly 32 ounces of both orange juice and a sports drink of some sort. The orange juice has vitamin C and iron and that can help boost your iron levels and prevent anemia which is common for distance runners. Sports drinks are also important seeing that runners will be losing excessive amount of fluids during exercise it is a good idea to replenish electrolytes and sugars. Advocare rehydrate is my go to drink as it does so well rehydrating and refueling your body and it has substantial all natural sugars.  

Other valuable things to drink to aid hydration and recovery. Chocolate milk is excellent to drink for post workouts with the protein and sugars loaded in each individual glass.3 Beet juice is also great for after tough speed workouts where your body is experiencing more than normal inflammation, beet juice reduces inflammation and speeds of recovery. Hydration is very important as a distance runner it can be compared to keeping oil in your car, without water you will never reach your maximum potential as a runner.

Sources:

1. Result Filters. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2015,from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10198142
2. The Very Best Beverages for Runners. (2014, July 8). Retrieved October 5, 2015, from http://www.runnersworld.com/hydration-dehydration/the-very-best-beverages-for-runners
3. 6 Hydration Secrets for Top Performance. (2013, July 15). Retrieved October 5, 2015, from http://www.runnersworld.com/hydration-dehydration/6-hydration-secrets-for-top-performance