The big news in racing this past weekend was the weather. Sunny, hot, humid and relentless with temperatures reaching close to 40 degrees. Not too bad if you are running 5k but head out for a half iron distance race and without proper hydration and nutrition management it became a very long day.
In any given workout the human body can sweat out up to three litres of water, burn approximately 750 calories and lose upwards of 2000mg of sodium per hour of activity; although new studies are showing some heavy sweaters can lose almost 6000mg of sodium per hour. These maximums lost are important not because we want to replace what we lose but to realize the total cumulative effect of repetitive bouts of exercise, increased intensity of exercise and racing stresses.
We can NOT replace what we lose during our activity as we can only absorb about 30% but with careful documentation during training noting distance, intensity, duration and air temperature for every workout we can develop a plan for race day. Before your long training efforts lay out your products planning on 250-400 calories, approximately one litre of fluid and 500-1000mg of electrolyte per hour of your workout. Adjust numbers for intensity-you burn more calories so you need to start supplementing sooner but you can absorb less so take a product with two sources of carbohydrate and take it more frequently. Temperature-higher temperatures means more fluid required AND more electrolyte. If you are sweating you need to take electrolyte with your fluid to prevent hyponatremia. This past weekend 2000mg of electrolyte per hour worked well for those athletes that took it.
Workout and race nutrition doesn?t stop when you do. Continue replacing what you have lost remembering that if it took you five hours to complete your event, you lost 15 litres of fluid and may have only replaced five litres during - you are still down 10 litres of fluid. To be sure weigh yourself before and after. Every kilogram lost is equivalent to one litre of fluid. Dehydration delays recovery, making your next workout session more difficult.
Those braving the half iron distance (2/90/21) were Dennis Hills (5:39:27), Janet Allaire (6:58:45), Donna Lott (6:37:21), Jamie Mutton (6:10:24), Bill Saunders (6:37:21), Jennifer Tretina (6:20:35), Diane Harper (7:00:33), Darwin Ziprick (5:54:36), and Wendy McCoy (7:30:32).
In the sprint were Kim Drysdale (1:30:50), Jeff Musson (1:15:42), Eric Lindenburg (1:22:12), Wendy Roth (1:36:32), John Kooistra (1:12:13), Brian Donnan (1:30:34), Michael Foley (1:15:39), and Alexandra Noel Turner (1:30:30).
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At the Sydenham races Breanne Gibson (2:29:05) and Mike Myers (2:15:27) raced the Olympic Tri (1500/40/10), Stacey Berdan (1:21:33) and Greg Kerr (1:30:00) raced the Sprint Tri (500/20/5), David Conroy (1:37:53) participated in the Kayak Tri, Kelly Stevenson (36:09) participated in the Sydenham 5k and Kirk Tischnein (48:00) ran the Sydenham 10k.
Agustin Garcia participated in the All3Zones Canada Day 5k crossing the line in 24:46. For complete results of the Belleville Canada Day 5k go to
www.redballradio.com and for Wolfe Island results go to
www.roadraceresults.com.
