Distance Hydration and Rehydration

[PDLSFR]

Hello Zoners, looking for as much advice as possible on best practices for long distance paddle hydration and what is the best option for what to fill up a good size camelbak with to rehydrate while on 20+ mile paddles?

I did last years CCBC and brought only water, I've heard coconut water and other mixed concoctions are better.

Some folks have said adding some sugar and salt to water is also a good option.

[greatdane]

Lots of options out there, many of the same things runners and cyclist use.  My favorites are HEED, Skratch & Nuun.  Straight Gatorade has a ton of sugar.  I usually dilute these quite a bit or else the sugar can give me a gnarly stomach ache during a hard race.  2 important bits of advice:  ALWAYS try a new drink mix a few times before your race.  Race time is not the time to find out it doesn't agree with you.
Second: ALWAYS rinse out your Camel Bak soon after using a sugary mix… the things that can grow in your drink tube and bladder look like something from a horror movie.

[JF808]

For something that far, hydration begins well before the actual event. Coconut water is a awesome source for hydration, but the key is to start hydrating days before your event.  if your only starting to hydrate a few hours before the event or race... your wasting your time.

I also love using Hammer Nutrition. I'll always hydrate with Heed for normal distances and will use Perpetuem for longer distances.  I especially love their recoverite when doing back to back events. Recently though over the past 3 months I've been using a more natural product from Vega, I seem to like it better and I'm considering switching to Vega for all my nutrition.  for the most part, I stay away from sugar. It might be good towards the end of the event when you really need that final extra push, but to take sugar at the beginning and crash midway... hell no

And I most certainly agree with cleaning out your camelbak after adding any kine of mixture to your hydration, things will grow!!!! lol

[covesurfer]

Personally, I love coconut water even though it's pretty expensive. Lately, Costco has had it on sale for a pretty good deal. They sale it for a couple weeks, then you have to wait until they do it again. I've been stocking up.

I have read that you should be careful with relying on the coco water too much as it is full of potassium and, if you really get excessive with using it, it can throw your electrolyte balance off. There are a bunch of articles about this on the web. I think the take away is that you should use moderation and common sense. Also be sure to get good electrolyte replacement from a balanced source or sources.

[JF808]

Potassium is good for cramps though! And not all coconut water is the same. I personally stay away from ones that have added sugar. The one from Costco is good, the flavored ones usually have a lot of extra crap added to it.

When it comes to hydration there are so many different ways to do it. You honestly need to find what works best for your body rather then what works for someone else.  It's good to listen to practices, but as far as brands go... you need to experiment and see what you like best.  Someone who trains for 5k's might not have the best advice for someone who does marathons.

I wouldn't advise using coconut water as your sole source of nutrition for a 20+ mile event at a race pace. Your gonna need to suppliment for sure as electrolytes are lost, you need to replenish.

GreatDane has mentioned some products I also agree with using.

[supdiscobay]

I also love using Hammer Nutrition. I'll always hydrate with Heed for normal distances and will use Perpetuem for longer distances.  I especially love their recoverite when doing back to back events.

These three Hammer products, got me through 4 months of training and finishing a marathon, in 4:20, at the age of 51.  Some minor muscle problems through the training, but the supplements made it possible.  Never ran more than 6.2 miles before that, and it had been 15 years since then.  You do have to use them on a regular basis.  Race day is not the time to use something your body isn't used to. I still use recoverite on a regular basis, after tough workouts.  Starting to train hard for a 22 mile paddle coming up and will, as my mileage increases, go from coconut water and Hammer Gel, to Heed, then to Perpeteum.

Also hydration takes a few days to set in, so always start way ahead of time.

[BWilliam]

Interesting article on hydration and physical activity from the guys at BlackSheepWarrior...

https://www.blacksheepwarrior.com/hydration-hyperbole-by-kino-l-davis/







William

[headmount]

Great article BWilliam and cool website.  Hot humid light to no wind days here can make you feel pretty marginal out on the ocean when you're pushing hard over 1.5 hrs.  I've bonked in those conditions and know many other really good paddlers who have as well.  Funny thing was, I had an electrolyte drink in my camel when I did.  So for our 10 mile run here, I only use pure water.  It rides easy in my gut and I think that's top priority.  If it's some low wind race where I might be pushing my limits maybe about a third of a can of coco water mixed in with pure. 

I've had coco water that has occasionally gone off so I always take a small non swallowing hit like a wine taster, before I put anything in my camel.  Check the cans for dents before buying.  I like the cans as the taste generally seems cleaner to me than cartons but who knows.

Even a little coco mixture deserves a camel flush immediately after use.

I've been scared of really hot days because of this but this last year have conquered those fears with some long no wind grinds.  But summer is rad so work with it like all the guys above posted.   This is a huge topic and 20 miles is definitely pushing the envelope for anyone over 50.  Can be done but attention must be paid. 

[PonoBill]

I like my homemade stuff--you can mix it up during a restaurant a breakfast. A couple of fresh limes or lemons squeezed into a glass of OJ. Add a little salt and some lite salt (potassium) and dilute the heck out of it with water. I also like coco water three to one. Make sure you're using good water. I forget a lot and wind up using water from the shower on the beach in Maui. I think it's recycled from the sewage treatment plant.

Only problem with coco water is when you forget you have it in your camelback, and you leave it in the hot car for a couple of days. Tastes like bad cheese. I've taken a big slug halfway through a race and nearly lost it.

Its true that if you're not hydrated two hours before the race you're not going to hit optimal hydration during the race. Sipping on your camelback during the race mostly just feels hood, and makes you feel racier.

So it's a fine article, but the core notion is that your body supplies enough sodium to the water you drink to permit adsorption, and that's sort of true--unless you're drinking a lot of water. And when people are trying to get hydrated before a race they are likely to do so. You need sodium in the water because of narrow band of acceptable salinity for water transfer into the cells. For optimal uptake the water outside the cell should have similar salinity to the water inside the cell--which is called Normal Saline and it's about 0.90 percent salt by volume. If there's a lot more salt in the water the transfer goes backwards--water leaves the cell because of osmotic pressure and the cells dehydrate--one of many reasons you can't drink seawater.

If water makes it into the cell without accompanying sodium ions then the salinity decreases, and the cell gets very inefficient and may die. I'm not sure why, but it does. The cell wall controls permeability and permits water molecules with a sodium ion stuck to the polar bond much more easily than an unaccompanied one. Gross oversimplification, but that's the jist of it.

So yes, your body can supply salt to help water transfer into the cells, but it's a lot better if it doesn't have to. But no, you don't need expensive salt--it's just sodium ions that matter, and table salt provides those very nicely. You don't need a lot, but you need some.

I can geek on and on about this. It was the subject of the only biology science fair thing I ever did, most of my projects were in physics. Naturally it got me in hot water. The effects of propylene glycol on rats and paramecia during hypothermia. I can see those ASPCA folks shaking their fingers under my nose like it was yesterday. They are undoubtedly safely dead though since it was more than 50 years ago. Killed a lot of rats. Salt was the culprit. Internal cell pressure increases dramatically when you cool a cell down to about 4 degrees F. Shoves the water out of the cell and leaves the sodium behind--which kills everything inside and turns it to salty mush.

Well, actually I guess I was the culprit. Banned from reading my paper at the MIT science symposium. Bastards.

[headmount]

So how much salt for a 100ml camel for that .90percent? 

[PonoBill]

Two teaspoons per liter is the thumb rule. I go a little less because I'm a geek and I know it's less. If you want to be precise it's 9 grams per liter, which is not as obvious as it might seem because that percentage is specified as weight/volume. As every kitchen chemist knows there are five (4.9) ml per tsp. And for a surprising number of things 1ml = 1g is close enough.

[spookini]

the key is to start hydrating days before your event.  if your only starting to hydrate a few hours before the event or race... your wasting your time.

I think that might be a bit of overkill..
Hydration isn't carbo-loading (which does involve a cycle of several days to be effective) -- it's simply putting water into your system.

I used to do 50K xc ski marathons. Very hi constant aerobic/anaerobic effort.  Tough to drink while skiing -- and once my body would go out-of-balance 1/2-way through, I'd have to stop CONSTANTLY every couple k's to pee.  Major performance killer.

Good piece of advice I got was to drink lots of liquid the evening before, including way more than seemed reasonable, before going to bed.  "If you have to get up several  times during the night, you did it right."  Once I started doing that, my race day pee problems were solved. 

[PonoBill]

There is a fairly long uptake period, the water has to pass through the plasma membrane in layer after layer of cells. Uptake depends on original hydration level, but on average it's a few hours. The water that makes it though your stomach and bowel walls goes into arterial blood and gets carried to cells. In the cells it picks up contaminants and most of it passes right back out to venous blood, to the kidneys, bladder and out. Most the water we drink under any circumstance goes right back out again--especially beer since it doesn't have to change color. Fill yourself full an hour before the race and all you are guaranteeing is a lot of pee.

The cockroach in MIB was right--we are basically bags of water. Billions of water balloons. Getting them all to have just the right amount of water is a challenging task and it's tweaked endlessly by whatever else is going on in your body.

[SpecialK]

I'm in the middle of dialing this in right now... here is what I've learned so far:

-Sugar kills. Avoid Gatorade, etc. Use HEED or something similar instead.
-You need to watch your calories, not just hydration.
-So far I've been good with 200-250 calories/hour (I'm about 185 lbs).

Basic recipe for 4 hours of paddling:

-3L of fluid (camelbak), with 5 scoops of HEED. This hydrates and gives you about 150 cal/hr). Drink every 10-15 minutes, starting right away.
-Mix and match gels/shot blocks/nutrition bars to get another 100 cal/hr. Eat something every half hour. I find I need a combination of both gels and bars. Gels alone leave me hungry, but bars alone fill my stomach too much.
-The goal is to keep the calories coming in steadily, starting right away. For example, I'll bite off a third of a bar at 30 mins, a gel at an hour, some more bar at 90 mins, etc... All the while, drinking.

That's a rough sketch. The exact formula depends on what you like, how many calories you need and takes practice to dial in.

But no question, eat/drink early and often... if you let yourself get hungry, you're done.

[PonoBill]

Uck. I got a big ol' vat of HEED you can have. I've read the ingredients on lots of those powders and potions. Might as well toss in a cup of weed killer--I wouldn't be able to distinguish it from all the other unpronounceable shit.