hydration in hot weather

jca said the following on 05/07/2006 10:45:

Quoted message said:

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

I'm not an expert by any means, but it sounds a bit like mild sunstroke
or just effects of the heat as you suggest. If it was down to
insufficient fluids, it would be coming out significantly darker than
when it went in!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

jca said:

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

I am not a doctor, but you might want to try using isotonic drink during
the ride, or at least put a few pinches of salt in with the water.

Anthony

jca said:

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

If you're peeing a lot then I doubt you're dehydrated, unless you've
got some other problem such as diabetes. Not that I'm in any way
medically qualified to judge.
Could be tension in the neck and shoulders? Could be eyestrain if
you're riding into a bright, low evening sun? Might just be down to
the weather, when I was younger I used to suffer from migraines brought
on by thundery weather especially if I was running around in the sun.

Quoted message said:

Despite this, I seem to get quite nasty headaches for a number of hours
post-ride, and tend to end up on the neurofen. This does seem to be
worse in hot weather - I went out early on Sunday (8:00) to beat the
worst of the heat, but it was still ~25C by the time I finished, and
suffered for the rest of the day as a result.

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

I get headaches on hot days however much I drink but they will settle
if I keep down the effort and keep cool, by soaking myself with any
reasonable water if available. Unfortunately keeping up with a group
may not offer opportunities to do that and I find once the pain starts
it gets worse unless I drop off.
I do not get it in cool weather at all.
Drinking as you describe helps, but I think it is an acclimatisation
thing.Perhaps proprietary rehydration potions might help such as high 5
etc., since they may have better salt doses.
There is also the 'excercise induced headache' for which no explanation
is offered.I do not think that is a very optimistic diagnosis.
In Spain I like to wear a loose long sleeved cotton shirt that I can
soak frequently, and no bib on the shorts.
TerryJ

jca said:

Despite this, I seem to get quite nasty headaches for a number of
hours post-ride, and tend to end up on the neurofen. This does seem
to be worse in hot weather - I went out early on Sunday (8:00) to
beat the worst of the heat, but it was still ~25C by the time I
finished, and suffered for the rest of the day as a result.

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

It sounds like a shortage of salts to me, and also, it could be hunger. I
certainly find myself eating far too little in hot weather, much to the
detriment of my general vitality.

A

jca said:

Hi folks,

Raising the issue of adequate hydration from a different perspective, I
believe when I cycle, I take on-board ample fluids, but am having
problems with post-ride headaches. My normal local evening trundle (2-3
times a week, if time permits) is a 20 mile loop, predominantly
off-road, largely on the flat (but rough!), but with a couple of
reasonably meaty climbs. I tend to do this in around 1:40, and in that
time get through between 1.75 and 2.25 litres of water from my camelbak.
Straight after riding, I drink 500ml of isotonic sickly gunk. I believe
I'm taking on board sufficient fluids, since I then end up making
somewhat frequent visits to the loo for the next few hours, and it seems
to come out about the same colour it went in!

Despite this, I seem to get quite nasty headaches for a number of hours
post-ride, and tend to end up on the neurofen. This does seem to be
worse in hot weather - I went out early on Sunday (8:00) to beat the
worst of the heat, but it was still ~25C by the time I finished, and
suffered for the rest of the day as a result.

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

Thanks,
James

I used to get this too. Now I ride with a 1ltr bottle of water, and a
1ltr bottle of Dioralyte/Ribena mix when it's hot.

Not troubled anymore with post ride headaches, unless (like Sunday) the
weather is just silly.

--
Chris

Thanks everyone for the advice. I wasn't diabetic 6 months ago when I
had to have some blood tests done, and I have had the problem in
previous years as well, so (hopefully!) that can be counted out. The
main message seems to be a salt issue, so I'll play around with a mix of
plain water and isotonic gunk and see how that goes. Don't fancy relying
purely on isotonic drinks - filling a 3 litre camelback three times a
week would bankrupt me!

Cheers,
James

jca said:

Thanks everyone for the advice. I wasn't diabetic 6 months ago when I
had to have some blood tests done, and I have had the problem in
previous years as well, so (hopefully!) that can be counted out. The
main message seems to be a salt issue, so I'll play around with a mix of
plain water and isotonic gunk and see how that goes. Don't fancy relying
purely on isotonic drinks - filling a 3 litre camelback three times a
week would bankrupt me!

Cheers,
James

A box of 6 Dioralyte sachets is £2.79 at Tesco. I have found a single
sachet in a one litre bottle of well diluted Ribena is fine for a 200k
Audax. YMMV.

--
Chris

jca said:

Don't fancy relying
purely on isotonic drinks - filling a 3 litre camelback three times a
week would bankrupt me!

I posted this to the Audax UK list the other day, it seems it could be
useful here as well. Bear in mind there may be errors, but seems to work
for me!

- Commercial isotonic drinks are about 0.6 grams/litre sodium, 0.2g/l
potassium, and 50-80g/l carbohydrate.

- This means 1.5g/l NaCl (normal salt) and 0.4g/l KCl (found in
low-sodium salt substitutes, which you can get from the supermarket).

- Low-sodium salt is about 2:1 KCl:NaCl, so you need about 0.6g/l
low-sodium salt, and 1.3g/l normal salt.

- A teaspoon is about 6g.

- Typically, you need to dilute fruit squash about 10:1 to get the
required carbohydrate concentration.

So, stick 1 tsp of low-sodium salt, and 2 tsp of normal salt in a litre
bottle of fruit squash concentrate, dilute 10:1, and you've got pretty
much exactly what you'd get from an expensive isotonic drink.

You can obviously adjust as required if you're using fruit juice or
whatever, but I prefer using squash concentrate because it makes the
quantities larger (hence easy to measure out), and you don't need to
measure it all out every time.

Anthony

You might be producing large amounts of urine when you use up your
glycogen reserves.

Each gram of glycogen is attached to 3 or 4 grams of water. You might
benefit from eating some carbohydrate as well as drinking things other
posters have suggested.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

in message <[email hidden]>, Chris Smith

(') said:

jca said:

Hi folks,

Raising the issue of adequate hydration from a different perspective,
I believe when I cycle, I take on-board ample fluids, but am having
problems with post-ride headaches. My normal local evening trundle
(2-3 times a week, if time permits) is a 20 mile loop, predominantly
off-road, largely on the flat (but rough!), but with a couple of
reasonably meaty climbs. I tend to do this in around 1:40, and in that
time get through between 1.75 and 2.25 litres of water from my
camelbak. Straight after riding, I drink 500ml of isotonic sickly
gunk. I believe I'm taking on board sufficient fluids, since I then
end up making somewhat frequent visits to the loo for the next few
hours, and it seems to come out about the same colour it went in!

Despite this, I seem to get quite nasty headaches for a number of
hours post-ride, and tend to end up on the neurofen. This does seem to
be worse in hot weather - I went out early on Sunday (8:00) to beat
the worst of the heat, but it was still ~25C by the time I finished,
and suffered for the rest of the day as a result.

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

Thanks,
James

I used to get this too. Now I ride with a 1ltr bottle of water, and a
1ltr bottle of Dioralyte/Ribena mix when it's hot.

What do you think it is in the ribena that's making a difference? Having
done 60Km today on two bottles of water and one of SiS Go stuff (and a
heck of a lot of dilute mango juice when I got back in), I too am mildly
headachy. I thought that was more or less inevitable in this weather..?

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; not so much a refugee from reality, more a bogus
;; asylum seeker

Simon Brooke said:

What do you think it is in the ribena that's making a difference? Having
done 60Km today on two bottles of water and one of SiS Go stuff (and a
heck of a lot of dilute mango juice when I got back in), I too am mildly
headachy. I thought that was more or less inevitable in this weather..?

It has carbs. The Ribena isn't there to cure headache - it's there as a
Jelly Baby Replacement system 🙂

The electrolyte mixture (which incidentally also contains more carbs - a
smidge of Glucose) helps with the headaches.

I did have a slight headache last Sunday when I did 200k in 30c
temperatures, but I just sloshed down a couple of Nurofen with the
Isotonic mix, and I was fine in 20 minutes. Most of the time, the
Isotonic mix is enough to keep headaches away.

Bananas and the odd packet of crisps help too 🙂

--
Chris

jca said:

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

If you're drinking enough (I was drinking about a litre an hour on
Saturday, one bottle of isotonic energy drink to 2-3 bottles of water,
and it still wasn't enough), then you may find that something as simple
as a cotton cycling cap to keep the sun off your head/out of your eyes
makes a difference. It does for me.

--
Danny Colyer <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/>
Subscribe to PlusNet <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/referral/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

jca said:

Hi folks,

Raising the issue of adequate hydration from a different perspective, I
believe when I cycle, I take on-board ample fluids, but am having
problems with post-ride headaches. My normal local evening trundle (2-3
times a week, if time permits) is a 20 mile loop, predominantly
off-road, largely on the flat (but rough!), but with a couple of
reasonably meaty climbs. I tend to do this in around 1:40, and in that
time get through between 1.75 and 2.25 litres of water from my camelbak.
Straight after riding, I drink 500ml of isotonic sickly gunk. I believe
I'm taking on board sufficient fluids, since I then end up making
somewhat frequent visits to the loo for the next few hours, and it seems
to come out about the same colour it went in!

Despite this, I seem to get quite nasty headaches for a number of hours
post-ride, and tend to end up on the neurofen. This does seem to be
worse in hot weather - I went out early on Sunday (8:00) to beat the
worst of the heat, but it was still ~25C by the time I finished, and
suffered for the rest of the day as a result.

Does this sound like a hydration problem, or purely down to the heat?

Thanks,
James

Perhaps you are drinking too much! The 500ml of isotonic sickly gunk
sounds distinctly headache making. 20 miles 3 times a week is good but
isn't astronomic - do you really need special attention to drink? Try
stopping for a pint of beer or 2 instead of a 'hydration' regime.
Listen to your body. You won't die even if you drink nothing during the
ride - though you will be thirsty!
I've never had a headache as a consequence of cycling and have done
some extremish things on occasions in hot weather too.

cheers
Jacob

PS yes I agree about keeping the sun out of your eyes and off your head
esp if tending to baldness! Otherwise can be frazzling.

normanwisdom said:

Try
stopping for a pint of beer or 2 instead of a 'hydration' regime.

Personally, I can't imagine anything more likely to induce a headache than
mixing beer and exercise on a hot day. But, if it works for you... ;-)

With extreme "tending to baldness" i wonder how to keep the sun off the dome
without creating gallons of sweat. Any suggestions?

SW

"normanwisdom" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

PS yes I agree about keeping the sun out of your eyes and off your head
esp if tending to baldness! Otherwise can be frazzling.

"Steve Watkin" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

With extreme "tending to baldness" i wonder how to keep the sun off
the dome
without creating gallons of sweat. Any suggestions?

Woss wrong with a cotton cycling cap?

Douse with water for added cooling.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

Steve Watkin said:

With extreme "tending to baldness" i wonder how to keep the sun off the dome
without creating gallons of sweat. Any suggestions?

For UK conditions ... maybe a baseball cap or somesuch?
I have a follicularly challenged friend who swears by a Tilly had,
but doesn't use it for cycling. Something like that should be
OK for somewhat hotter climes such as southern Europe, too.

For serious heat, look to people accustomed to it.
Turbans serve to protect the wearer from extreme heat.

--
not me guv