jamesdak 

Yep, I usually go through 4 mugs of coffee on a weekend morning then top off with a 12 oz glass of water before my long rides. Not dehydrated at all.

MoAlpha

Around here, we don’t get peak hot weather without terrible air quality. I don’t mess with it.

Carbonfiberboy 

There's a Finnish sauna study, IIRC centered around CVD, which found that one had to sauna 5 days a week to get the benefit. Those who only sauna 1-2 times/week didn't get the benefit. Might be the same for us. Benefit was lower CVD risk but I don't remember the mechanism.

DaveLeeNC

This is anecdotal at best kind of 'data'.

But after a handful of days being more mindful of hydration and actually practicing some reasonable hydration actions on my medium length rides (call it 2'ish hours), I get a sense of something that had not occurred to me before.

First it is clear that starting your hydration with slow sipping very early in a ride, yields (for me) a real limitation in water processing. Anything more than a single water bottle (24 oz in my case) gets relatively uncomfortable. But it seems that once your body has decided that 'dehydration is on the way', things kind of open up and I can start processing a whole lot more water per hour than that single bottle.

At least that is my sense of things at this point. If that is true then that pretty much resolves my concern.

dave

seypat

Your hydration needs to be starting 1 or 2 days before. If you have a big ride planned this weekend, you should be ramping up the water intake starting today. I have a 14 mile run on Saturday morning. I will increase my water intake starting this evening through Saturday morning.

TimothyH

This is exactly why I start drinking well in advance of a long ride.

I should be hydrating and peeing a clear stream as the beginning of the ride approaches.

All those people on line for the porta-potty before a century are onto something


-Tim-

CAT7RDR

In the summer, I will use a Camelbak with 70 ounces of chilled water plus two 25 oz thermos bottles one with Cytomax and one with whey protein mix. This was sufficient for a 55 mile 6K climb ride over 5 hours in 80 to 95 degree temps yesterday.

Some roadies c/o a Camelbak being uncomfortable but I think constantly sipping water trumps that assertion. After all, I am riding for recreation not racing.

DaveLeeNC

One 'problem' that I have is that my prostate is the same age that I am. There are some things that simply are not happening

Dave

Ps. I would need some serious convincing b4 accepting that what I drink on Thursday has much of an effect on hydration on Saturday.

Seattle Forrest

If I drink too much water on Thursday (by getting dehydrated in the morning and then overcompensating in response to endless thirst) I'll still be peeing too much on Saturday.

BengalCat

When it comes to riding in the "heat" all I can say is personally as I aged past 60 from there on my tolerance to heat while exercising began to significantly decrease. I'm 73 now and I have to really lower my efforts on longer climbs as the temperature rises.

MoAlpha

The advantage of early hydration is that transfer of water from the vascular space into cells and the interstitial space takes time and the “charging curve” is a logarithmic function, which begins to asymptote as the osmotic gradient driving water redistribution decreases.

I have often wondered about this phenomenon, which I get too, especially sailing, where you can be very busy for hours and forget to drink and then go off watch and go crazy on the water or, worse yet, finish the race and hit the bar. I think this also has to do with lagging repletion and signaling, but I need to refresh my rusty physiology and think about it.

DrIsotope

Easy trick, just be dehydrated all the time! I usually ride 6 days a week, and note that my one firm off-day (Mondays) I urinate more quantity, more often-- relatively speaking, anyway.

I did a warm-ish 50 miles this morning, and despite having taken in 200+ ounces so far today, I've used the restroom just twice since I got back from the ride.

I think I'm perpetually dehydrated.

Seattle Forrest

I used to date a lady whose sense of thirst just didn't work at all. I don't know how that's possible, evening would roll around and she's realize the only thing she drank all day was a cup of coffee. Must have been pretty bad for her. This phenomenon where your body takes a while to turn the thirst down after you start replenishing ... I'll take it. 🙂

Seattle Forrest

I ran out of water today, about 20 miles from the car. Expected to be able to get more along the way, I went through a little town with no store. Go figure.

I drank a gallon of iced electrolyte water on the drive home. And a 24 ounce iced latte.

I'd prefer not to do that again.

canklecat

I've been using creatine starting the day before a long summer ride, based on the theory that it helps retain water. Might have helped Saturday. I carried two 24 oz bottles for a 50 mile group ride (60 by the time I got home) and ran out at 40, which was the first convenience store we came across. Other folks were also running out of water about the same time. I chugged a 16 oz can of iced coffee, refilled both bottles with whatever cold sports drinks they had in the store.

My legs were pretty dead by the time I got home but was otherwise okay. I'd ridden 70 miles in the heat a couple of days earlier, which was the main reason my legs nearly quit about 3 miles from home. After breaking off from the group I just slowed down to 10 mph and coasted every opportunity.

But it seemed like pushing my luck. I wasn't familiar with this group's training route and didn't realize it would be 40 miles to the first convenience store. Next ride I'll go back to my usual summer practice of taking a third bottle -- usually a collapsible Mylar pouch with frozen electrolyte mix. Fits my middle jersey pocket, and is thawed by the time the two frame mounted bottles are empty. I can see why one of the group wore a Camelbak backpack. He may have been the only one who wasn't out of water by that point.

seypat

Since this is the hydration/dehydration thread, should we talk about something that happens to us/goes along with hydration/dehydration in the steamy/more humid regions of the country? I'm talking about prickly heat. Should we talk about that here or start another thread?

SCTinkering

I'm a water hog. I can drain a 3 liter camelbak on a 3 hour ride in NorCal. I carry one 20 oz water bottle with just water for pouring over if I need it.

I also suggest a low or no sugar electrolyte.

alanf

Consider juicing cucumber first thing in the AM. (16 ounces of juice) It hydrates well and provides energy to the liver

Another thing that I find is that when I drink water that HHO gas (Brown's Gas) has bubbled through it, the water does not leave my body for quite awhile even after having a litre of it. It seems to go right to the cells. Lots of good science on the beneficial effects of the hydrogen on the physiology in a variety of issues. It basically is food to the mitochondria, so it can make ATP, the energy of the cells. Breathing the HHO gas while it bubbles through the water and then drinking the infused water is our preferred method.

This is the unit we use: https://eagle-research.com/product/ac50/

Studies references : https://hydrotonix.com/hydrogen-blog...chanisms-of-mo
Molecular hydrogen studies | CHESS
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5731988/

Podcasts ; https://oneradionetwork.com/all-shows/george-wiseman-hydrogen-the-breath-of-god-august-15-2019/
https://oneradionetwork.com/all-shows/george-wiseman-hydrogen-for-health-in-your-water-and-breathing-the-gas-june-18-2019/
https://oneradionetwork.com/all-show...-june-18-2019/ (Podcast has a promo code for 10% discount.)

So far this method has completely cleared up a very dark spot headed for melanoma status. (3 to 4 weeks)

MoAlpha

My money's on that monthly shower.

indyfabz

*shudder* Totally forgot about that. I used to get that when I was young. Super annoying.

MoAlpha

Define low. Sugar is in that stuff because some important K and NA conservation mechanisms are insulin-dependent.

SCTinkering

I put 5 nuun in a 3 liter camelbak 2 vitamin 3 non-caffinated sport. so 12 grams of carb for 3 liters while cranking 30-40 miles. those 12 grams likely get burned pretty fast.

I mix up a camelbak full the night before and let it fully fizz out. Extra belching.

12 grams of sugar over 3 hours isn't enough to trigger an obvious insulin response in me, but I'm also not fooling myself that I'm running on fat either.

shakey start

Same age and same modality. Clearly more susceptible to humidity and higher heat indices, so I guess it's an aging phenomenon. I stay in Colorado for the summers now to escape.

Mesher

See a doctor. It seems you have a serious medical issue.

balesmachine

How to bicycle better in the heat.

Here is what I’ve learned from my 48+ years of riding in the heat. I live in Fort Worth, Texas. I’ve haven’t lived here my whole life . . . . yet!

Texas summers can be pretty hot, for sure. I’ve always done well in the heat, and I’ve been asked what’s my secret. I think the recipe for doing well in the heat is, ready for this, ride in the heat. Seriously though, I think my secret is riding 1 to 1.5 hours during the hottest part of the day. Do it two or three times a week. Don’t go longer than that during this “training” session. Pretty soon, your body will know exactly what to do when it’s hot. Most folks can endure this length of ride. It's short enough that dehydration shouldn’t be a factor. I’ve always commuted to work. I try to do it two or three days a week during the warm parts of the year. I am the worst cold weather wimp, I admit.

I recently had a good friend that bonked on a very hot weekend ride. I met him a few weeks later and he said he went to the doctor, and found out his pituitary gland wasn’t working right, and got a little pill to take and everything was better. This spurred my interest, and I started searching out just what your body does, when you exercise in the heat, especially riding a bike. Here is what I learned.

I admit that I may have some of the details slightly off, but the general facts stand true (I think).

Your hypothalamus resides in your brain. One of its jobs is to regulate your core temperature. It controls your heart rate, your breathing, your perspiration, directs blood flow, and blood quantity, among other things. When you’re riding in the heat, it chimes in and starts doing its magic. It maintains your core temperature plus of minus one degree. That alone is amazing, considering the outdoor temperature can range from below freezing to over 100 degrees. It keeps your core temperature at 97.6 to 99.6 degrees. WOW.

When you ride you bike, you generate heat. More heat than when your sitting on the couch watching the Tour De France. When you start getting hot, your hypothalamus tells your heart to speed up. It then changes where your blood goes in your body. Normally about 20 percent of your blood volume resides right under your skin, and 80 percent goes to your muscles, and everywhere else. When your riding in the heat, 80 percent is under you skin, and 20 percent is left to work your muscles and everything else. This is why it's impossible to perform as well in the heat – you simply don’t have enough blood to feed those bulging quads, and everything else.

Another thing that happens without our knowledge is, when it gets hot, the hypothalamus directs your body to manufacture more blood to help fill in the void left by all that blood that’s now under you skin.

It also directs the fluids in the cells of your body to go to the sweat cells and make your skin wet. Wet skin plus a little wind, equals cooling. In fact, as long as it's not too humid and you have ample fluid supply, your body’s air conditioner works pretty well. All that hot blood right under that cool skin will release the heat of your body. The blood gets cooled off a bit and returns to the core, and voila, your core gets cooler.

Everything works great, most of the time. But sometimes certain conditions can make things run amuck. Here are some.

Humidity! Humidity is your enemy. When the air is humid, and it's hot outside, the water on your skin won’t evaporate. Without evaporation, you have little or no cooling. You overheat!

Dehydration. Of course, you have to be hydrated to have enough water supply in your cells to sweat. Being dehydrated removes the water from this wonderful evaporation air conditioner, and, you guessed it. You overheat!

Here’s a little about hydration and dehydration. During a strenuous ride in the heat, you can only absorb about half the volume of fluid that you perspire out. It doesn't matter how much you drink. So you will be somewhat dehydrated after the event. The last time you performed well on a long ride in the heat, it probably had as much to do with how well you hydrated the day before the event, as it did the day of the event. So start the day before saturating all your cells in your body with fluid. A few years ago, I went to the Tour of California, and we stayed in the hotel where a bunch of the pro riders were staying. It was a small town, so after the days race, the Pro riders were walking around town. We noticed that every single one of them had a water bottle or two, and were drinking constantly. They were re-hydrating for the next days race.

Your body is amazing. It does all this stuff without us having to think about it. If we had a set of instruments and knobs, that we had to keep set right, we would all die – just because we forgot to lower the landing gear, or something.

Lastly, what happens if you push through the pain of heat exhaustion? I can assure you - YOUR HYPOTHALAMUS WILL STOP YOU! It has enormous power. You will slow down and stop, no matter how much will power you have. Trouble is if you go too far, you may carry it with you forever. Once you've had full blown heat exhaustion or heat stroke, you will always be more susceptible to the heat.

hope this helps

Steve