Heat Wave

Okay, I know I was spoiled living in California...but I paid the price by having to spend two summers out of three in Kuwait and Afghanistan...so I deserve a nice summer...but someone left the heater on.  It was crazy hot out there for my run today.  It said 87 on the weather channel but I think it was in the 90s.

So how to deal with the heat and humidity...drink lots of water and Gatorade.  Okay the problem with just water is that if you drink to much you throw your electrolytes out of balance.  The Gatorade or any other drink like that brings your electrolytes back up.

Yea...I have a story about a good friend who I was running the Los Angeles Marathon with back a few years ago.  He had run prior marathons so I wasn't paying attention to him...we had another friend who was running his first and I was coaching him as we ran the course.  Because we were running at a very slow pace, my friend who had run prior marathons was staying well hydrated.  But without my knowledge he was passing up the Gatorade.  Well, when we finished the marathon, he went down because his electrolytes were out of balance.  The condition is called "hypokalemia."


There have been several studies on this.  I first heard about it at the Pittsburgh Marathon back in May of 2001.  They discovered at the end of the 2000 Pittsburgh Marathon a lot of runners who finished in the later part of the race like after 5 hours were going down with heart issues...they discovered it was "hypokalemia."  So remember...drink water but keep your electrolytes in balance by drinking electrolyte replacement drinks.  One more warning...to many electrolyte replacement drink will produce "hypernatremia."  That is also not a good thing...so keep a balance drink both during your work outs.


Remember "Go out easy...have fun...and keep the desire to run."