Recovery - Long runs in high heat

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Very true. The last thing a person wants to do is limit water intake on strenuous activities like that. I've seen people who come in severely dehydrated and it can take 2-3 liters of normal saline just to correct the kidneys. Best advice would be to hydrate to what you feel is appropriate and make sure your urine is clear yellow throughout the day. If its amber colored then increase intake.
 

307

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Comparing sick people with an athletic training population is questionable at best.

Just because some people become severely dehydrated, doesn't mean that others are not showing signs of hyponatremia. Mild to moderate dehydration is not the big deal that people seem to think it is. It may even be performance enhancing as demonstrated by a study of elite marathoners within the last couple of years. We seem to be so hydration obsessed that its created problems in the other extreme which are far more dangerous. Monitoring urine is a reasonable strategy for a healthy population but even that must be interpreted correctly.

There is a reason that weigh stations at ultra marathons are there to show weight GAIN rather than loss. The gain indicates water accumulation which can kill people quite quickly.

If OP feels bad for a long period after workouts, there is clearly a need to do something different. Perhaps a visit to your local MD would be in order.
 
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I've done a decent bit of running, and I don't necessarily believe 3L is too much, given the heat and relative humidity. Some people can function on very little water, and some need a lot.

I would look at getting Endurolytes or S-Caps and take these during your run.

Question for the OP, are you peeing a lot during and after your run? When I ran my 50 miler, late in the race I was getting very low on electrolytes. I could tell because I would drink water and would be peeing it out within 10-15 minutes. Once I took some electrolytes I began retaining the water.

If you are drinking 3L and never peeing, you are sweating a LOT and certainly need the water.

I would look at the chocolate milk option, or something else that has fat and protein in it, that is easily digestible. Get this in your system within 15-30 minutes post run.

Good luck and congratulations on your efforts!
 
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FlyGuy

FlyGuy

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Guys,

Sorry I went dark on you! Been trying to learn how to use Tapatalk. Apparently I didn't have this thread subscribed so I wasn't seeing the activity. Couldn't believe the amount of responses when I opened it today.

I only scanned through the replies, will go back and read through them more closely tonight but wanted to thank all of you for your input and give an update. There is a lot of good info here, some of it I'll have to digest a bit further to fully understand, but wanted to do a quick reply and answer a few questions that I saw had come up.

Yes, I'm on the bigger end size wise. 5'11". Was ~ 225lbs in December, hovering around 190 right now - which when I started was my goal weight that I wanted to hit before september. Home scale says I'm at 17% body fat now, so still have plenty of room to improve. Would love to get down below 180 (been about 15 years since the scale said 1-7-anything), but that's not the most critical thing to me right now. Just trying to push as hard as possible and increase my overall fitness level before I hit WY on 9/10. Currently mixing in a number of things to get there: Xfit 2-3 days/week. 1-2 training runs/week - usually 7 miles. 1 long run/week 10 - 12 miles. 1 weighted backpack hike/treadmill. (5-6 days a week total).

Like i said, I sweat A LOT. Like a ridiculous amount.

On normal 7 mi runs on pavement my pace averages 9:40/mile, and I usually drink about 30 ounces in this heat. Earlier in the year, or on a rainy day with cooler temps, I'd say I drank half as much.

But my long runs are on trails (more shade, more interesting) and my pace on trails is always MUCH slower. I'm closer to 15min/mile average on trails so I am usually out there for at least 3 hours minimum. The long runs are the only times I've had trouble, especially since it got so hot since June. I typically have been drinking a nalgene (32 oz) with 1 scoop of ignite & one packet of crystal lite pure when I wake up, and one 16oz bottle of water on the ride over to the trail that usually has a random flavor pack in it. Due to the heat, I've been filling my 100oz bladder all the way, and each time when im finished unning I'm surprised to see it's almost completely empty when I get to the truck. The bladder just has water in it, no powders at all.

I took advise from Brendan's first reply and ordered the Nuun tablets that same day and tried them out yesterday on my long run. Happy to say it made a huge difference! I drank one bottle with a tablet in it pre-run (along with the nalgene with ignite/crystal lite). I stuck another bottle with a tablet in my camelback, along with the 100oz bladder, and had a bottle with a tablet waiting in the truck.

At the 1 hour mark I drank 1/2 of the Nuun bottle. Maybe it was placebo, but I swear I could feel an immediate difference. At two hours I killed the 2nd half and felt the same immediate improvement. I was hoping to log 13 miles, but at around 2:40 I hit the wall. Ended up doing 11.5 and was completely wiped out again. The last 2 miles back to my truck were nothing short of brutal. Snail's pace. Legs hurting. Same ole, same ole. Wish I would have had another bottle/tablet with me! Oh, and the full 100oz of water in my bladder was gone again.

I killed the 3rd tablet when I got to the truck, and maybe one more when I got home. This time though I didn't feel like crap for the rest of the day! Tired, sure. But not dizzy and "off" and dragging ass for 20+ hours! I'm interested to hear what others think, but at this point I'm planning to do the same routine except I'll take two bottles with tablets with me next week. Drink 1 full bottle every 50 min or so and see how that goes.

Calorie wise, that might need tweaking. I'm sure that I'm low on calories, but I'm still needing to drop a pretty good bit of extra weight. I don't get into the details of everything nutritionally, but I try to eat pretty clean. I use myfitnesspal to track calories (most days). I set my caloric in take goal at 1400/day until I hit 190. Bumped it up to 1600/day since then.




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If you are doing what you say, that caloric intake is way low bud for that amount of exertion. You know you better than anybody. But, two of dieting's biggest sins is not eating often enough and, limiting calories too heavily versus your workout regimen. It's a recipe for injury, plateauing, body mineral and vitamin deficiency's, and feeling plan lousy.

Let me give you a tip. Do a real body fat test. Your scale is basing that off your height versus weight. My son almost missed going into the air force because he weighed 204 lbs at 5'7". He was lean but thick from his head to his toes. According to the charts, he needed to loose almost 50 pounds. But, when they did his body fat test at the recruiters the day he went to weigh in, he come in at 6%. So, the charts are a broad brush guideline. Don't base your goals off of objective data. Get real time accurate data. If you are one of those guys that just weigh more for your height, starving yourself to get that last ten pounds is counter productive anyways. Also, you'll find your true body fat percentage will raise in that last 10 pounds and, the weight will come back quickly if you cheated it off with too few calories.




On your regimen, I'd Cut the most of the fruits, artificial sweeteners, starches, etc.... Clean food. Up your caloric intake and eat every three hours or so. Proteins, veggie's, and a serving of fruit sugar daily. Nuts are great too. Eat good fats and eat enough of it. Eat good carbs when your body tells you too. Your intensity will improve. Your body will respond positively. And, get a real measure of current body fat because you may never lose that last ten pounds doing this. You'll likely gain the fat lose with muscle if you'll fire the engine. So, you need a measure to evaluate your progress.



Your goals are yours. But, you can accomplish them more efficiently if you fire your metabolism up. Don't get hung up on your weight number. Our bones get heavier as we age through our 20's. So you might get in better shape than you were when you were young but, you'll likely never weigh that amount again at your best fitness. This has worked for me every time I wanted to lean out but, be extremely fit. I apologize for being so long winded but, I've been where you are at. I hope this helps. God Bless
 
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Yep, up your caloric intake. That bit of info is a game changer. Feeling lethargic is usually either overtraining or crappy nutrition, as in poor OR inadequate.

I've done 25 mile runs early on nothing more than a bagel and cup of coffee, then worked a full day and felt great. However, I was eating about six small meals a day too.


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Ironman8

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First off, congrats on working on your health and fitness and seeing the progress that you have. It's obvious that you're dedicated and want to be successful...and you will be. It'll pay off big time in the mountains.

I'm sure that you felt better after taking the electrolyte tabs, but I would almost guarantee that you "bonking" on your runs is due to your caloric level...especially for the prolonged periods that you felt drained. 1400-1600 cals is much much lower than you need given what you said your week looks like regarding your activity level. I'm thinking about 1200-1500 calories too low, believe it or not.

I'd also be willing to bet that you're having a pretty hard time dropping weight after the initial several pounds came off. If that's the case (and if it's not currently, then there will be a point where your body just says "enough"), then you need to understand that when you severely limit calories, the body will eventually adapt it's metabolism to that caloric level. Additionally, your body will adapt to the exercise that you're doing and will become "more efficient" and in effect burn less calories for the same task that previously burned more cals...especially when it comes to the "long/slow" style of cardio. It's a survival mechanism, and the only way to reverse that (and see progress again) is to get your metabolism healthy by increasing your caloric intake...and there's a couple ways to do that.

If you were my client, we would first talk about your goals since you did say that 190 was your original goal weight, but I would most likely get you on a reverse diet where we would incrementally increase calories over a period of time to get your metabolism back to where it should be. Also, we would make sure your diet is optimized (the right quantities/proportions of macros) for your activity level and overall goals. You would see an increase in performance up front, but not to mention, you want to be adequately fueled in the mountains when you really want to make it count.

If you want to do more reading on some of the things I mentioned above (especially regarding Reverse Dieting) look this article over:
The Ultimate Guide to Reverse Dieting

Hope that helps!
 
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Ironman8

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After re reading your first and last posts, I'm surprised you aren't injured.

Read ironman's post very closely.


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Thanks Jason, injury is a very real risk when pushing to the limit and underfueling at the same time. I know you have lots of experience with the long duration events, so I would direct the OP to you for advice there as well.
 
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FlyGuy

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I will look into adjusting the calories, but honestly I'm pretty hesitant just b/c it has been working so well for me thus far. This is an area that I really don't understand all that well. I hear so much conflicting advise about calories/diet/nutrition that I get completely overwhelmed with it all.

For the record, I feel great all week. I only have trouble on the long run days, and only since it's gotten so hot in the last few weeks. I've been plateaued for about 3-4 weeks at 190, but I can feel/see changes still happening so I'm not to concerned yet. I added in the xfit about 6-8 weeks ago, and it seems like every few days I notice a new bump (muscle) that I didn't have before. (Which is way cool, btw). Just saying that the scale isn't changing much lately, but my body is. I know these last 10-15 lbs will be hard to lose. I don't put any stock into the home scale body fat calculation, I was just throwing that in to give some perspective on where I'm at physically, same as when I gave my height.

I also don't feel like I'm starving either. It was a lot more difficult the 1st week or two, but once you cut out crap food you can get 1600 calories to go a long ways (volume wise).

Also, to clarify, I am exercising 5-6 days a week TOTAL. It consists of about any combination of what I listed (mostly xfit or running) in those ranges I listed, but only one of them per day and not more than six in a week. It might have read like I was doing a lot more than that, so wanted to be sure that I was clear.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I'm pretty nervous about adding calories back in (That's Kinda what got me in this position to start with, haha). I want to see how my run goes next week with the additional nuun tabs 1st. If that doesn't do the trick then I'll be a lot more convinced.

Regarding the peeing - I usually go once during the 1st 30 min of my run and that's about it. Even after pounding water and some coke zeros, I really don't start peeing again for several hours after the run. I literally will kill 3-4 nalgenes over as many hours once I'm back home before I start peeing again. 1st one is always really dark yellow, but the second one is usually back to normal.








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FlyGuy

FlyGuy

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Ironman8,

I didn't see your last two posts until after mine (was typing). I've never heard of that before but it makes sense. I'll check out the link tomorrow. Appreciate the help.


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Brendan

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I think Ironman and Jason are probably saying it better than I can - but if you cut your calories too low, your body responds by slowing your metabolism, trying to store fat, and you also have a harder time recovering and repairing muscles, and you can see muscle loss at too much of a caloric deficit. It can be a little counter-intuitive, but you might see better results by adding in more food, especially on your hard days. Lean protein, good fats, veggies.

Remember - you're two months out from your hunt. I would not be prioritizing weight loss at this point, I would be prioritizing injury prevention and fitness with weight loss after that. I'm the same height as you - went into my first Elk Hunt at 185, came home at 175 two weeks later...
 
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