Fitness Swellness: My Gatorade #KeepSweating progress and the importance of hydration

September 23, 2015

As you may know, I’ve got a big fitness goal for this fall: qualifying for the Boston Marathon, and to help me, Gatorade has partnered with me to help me work towards that goal during what we’re calling the Summer of Sweat. They’ve provided me with a supply of Gatorade, G2 and Gatorade Protein Shakes for hydration and recovery, plus I’ve joined the Pace & Mind team, so I have help from running coach Rejean Chiasson.

Since officially kicking off this Summer of Sweat program, life has been a whirlwind. I now somehow find myself with less than 40 days until the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (it’s on October 18, 2015) and I barely felt like I’d officially started training and I’m all of a sudden running the longest distances we will be doing for training. I think I was caught off guard because it took me awhile to decide on a goal race, so while I was maintaining and slowly building distance, mentally, I wasn’t officially in marathon training mode.

It didn’t help that in August, I was home in Toronto for only 11 days. I can manage shorter runs when I’m traveling, I prefer to run my long distances at home. My busy schedule also means that I have yet to make it out to run with my Pace & Mind teammates as a group. I’ve run with one team member and am regularly in contact with Rejean about my training. There’s a lively group chat of some very enthusiastic runners in the group, though, so that’s a new element to my training. The next few weeks are less travel-heavy so, it’s a goal of mine to train with the Pace & Mind team.

Given the hectic pace of August, I managed to maintain a consistent schedule for training, but I have slacked on the speed training, which is precisely what I need to get me to my goal. So I definitely need to focus, work hard and #KeepSweating from now on.

As luck would have it, Toronto was also hit with some extremely hot and humid weather, which made sure I kept sweating. My pace for long runs decreased significantly and I can’t help but find that stressful. I can’t even meet the slowest pace that coach has assigned me but he assured me that the pace he refers to is during ideal conditions (i.e.: when it’s not 38 Celsius outside).

Given the conditions, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to hydrate with Gatorade during my runs. My favourite flavour is Cool Blue, but as it gets closer to my goal race, I’ll likely try to stick more to the Lemon-Lime since that is often served on race courses.

I see so many runners without water and it boggles my mind. Even on a run as short as 5K, I feel parched; on a 32k run last week, I drank two-and-a-half bottles of Gatorade and a one-and-a-half bottles of water, and immediately downed a chocolate Gatorade Protein Shake (which has 20 grams of protein and rings in at 270 calories) as soon as I got home to help with muscle recovery. I always try to be really careful with hydration when I run since I’m not so great at consuming enough fluids from day to day (a habit I still struggle with improving) and I’m a heavy sweater. Like, seriously heavy. I think this is why I dislike sweating so much; I don’t experience just a light glistening of sweat like other girls in my NTC class. I am dripping and my gear is absolutely drenched with sweat.

If you’re not too clear as to how an electrolyte sports drink like Gatorade helps you when you work at high intensity, well, when you sweat, you lose sodium and potassium, Gatorade contains 210 mg of sodium and 55 mL of potassium per 500m to help replace what you sweat out. For more information on the importance of sodium and potassium and the science behind Gatorade, check out www.gatorade.ca

This is why I tend to only drink sports drinks on my long runs (which last for more than one hour), but not so often during my other training runs. My easy runs are a much shorter distance so I can hydrate with water or G2 (I’ll drink the G2, which is lower in calories depending on the intensity of my run and other factors such as the temperature outside.

During a recent 32k run last week that lasted over three hours, based on what I’ve read, it seems I may be on the low end of carb replenishment based on how much Gatorade I consumed, but I also ate several Honey Stinger electrolyte gummies during my run as well. I’ve taken note and will now try to up my intake since I believe I sweat more than the average person.

By the way, when running, it can be easy to fall into a zone and forget to drink so to make sure I hydrate regularly; every two kilometres I take a big sip. (If you run with regular walk breaks, say if you’re running 10s and 1s, use your one-minute break to hydrate.)

With 24 days to go until the Scotiabank Waterfront Toronto Marathon, stay tuned because my next Gatorade #KeepSweating post will be my marathon recap! And in the meanwhile, follow along with my training on Instagram and on Twitter.

 

Filed under: Fitness Swellness

Tags: carb, carbloading, carbs, dehydration, electrolytes, G, Gatorade, hydrate, hydration, marathon, potassium, sodium, summer of sweat, sweat, thirst, training, water