Dehydration ... not fun

[Jiffer]

I did a 59 mile ride with 4500 feet of climbing yesterday. I did this same ride twice recently (minus some of the flat miles) very strongly. My fastest ever. But yesterday just wasn't my day. Didn't feel as strong as soon as we started to climb, but managed to do the first section fairly well. During the next grueling 11.5 mile section, it just seemed way harder than usual and my pace was down quite a bit. It was warmer than it has been, but not super hot. In the low 70's. Just as I was about to the top of the climb, my leg started cramping, which rarely happens and never in the spot it cramped. When I reached the group, I got off the bike and didn't feel so good. Dizzy. I sat down to recover, but they wanted to take off pretty quickly to get water nearby. Bummer. I got back on the bike, got to the water stop and was just "done". Very fatigued and a little lightheaded.

Luckily the rest of the ride was mostly either downhill or flat, so I did alright. My cramp got super bad at one point, then was manageable. And I felt twinges of cramping in various places. But after I got home I felt like a total zombie the rest of the day. Way different than usual. I figured out I was definitely dehydrated. Fatigue, dizziness, cramping are all symptoms. As well as nausea and a couple of others. What makes it frustrating is I DID drink more than usual, but obviously not enough. It sure didn't seem necessary to drink more than I did, since it was in the high 50's when we left and eventually got into the low 70's. Yet, I've pretty much only been riding in the 50's-60's this year so far. And if it was warmer than that, it wasn't on a day that I was doing any significant climbing or distance.

That whole "bottle an hour" guideline seems to go out the window when it's cool. I never drink that much in cool weather (I also have the larger bottles). I do drink more when it's hot, but when you're not used to drinking that much and it's really more "warm" than hot, you just don't think you need to be guzzling fluids.

I went through the same thing at Heartbreak Hundred last year. 100 miles with 8500 feet, the hardest ride I have done to date. It got into the low 80's that day, which was, again, warmer than I had ridden in that year. I knew I definitely needed more fluids. Dh and I had talked about it beforehand and I was very conscious of it. Once again, I THOUGHT I was drinking enough ... but I had similar fatigue and dizziness issues, along with a touch of nausea that time.

One thing that seems to be the same in these two scenarios is the fact that it was the first time in the year doing a hard climbing ride in a higher temp. So part of it may be that I need even more fluids when my body isn't used to a certain temp, than it might after I've ridden in that temp several times. Does this make sense?

At any rate, I do intend to do more heat training this year. I'm doing Heartbreak again this year and it has been known to get into the 90's during that ride. So I'm going to purposefully ride in the middle of the day for some of my training rides. Yuck!

[Crankin]

I have the same issue, perhaps minus the nausea. For instance, last year we went to do a fairly flat ride, near the ocean in May. It was already about 83 when we got down there to start. It was humid. It got up to around 95 that day. Despite the fact that this is not a hard ride, it is 40 miles or so and I just couldn't keep the pace. My friends noticed my slowness right away, but they are not so heat sensitive. Then, it was cool and rainy until around the first of August. On the very first day it got up in the high eighties, I was on a very flat ride with my DH. It's short and what we do when we are being lazy. I had to stop twice! I think this happens when the weather does not gradually increase in temperature and wham, it's very hot. Even though I do drink more, it's like my body needs a lot of time to acclimate to hotter temperatures.
I generally dislike hot weather to begin with, so it is a big factor for me. My favorite riding temperature is 55-65.

[GLC1968]

Even though I do drink more, it's like my body needs a lot of time to acclimate to hotter temperatures.
I generally dislike hot weather to begin with, so it is a big factor for me. My favorite riding temperature is 55-65.

Ditto this. I don't do well with hot temps and it's doubly difficult when I haven't had a chance to get used to them. The first "hot" ride of the year is usually dreadful for me, no matter how much I drink.

I find my HR on those rides is sky high, too (for me) and that just saps my strength very quickly.

[sundial]

The humidity is what gets to me. When it's super humid I feel like I'm in slo-mo.

[Maxxxie]

I struggle in the heat, too. I make myself take a couple big swigs of water every ten minutes or so. On top of that, anytime my mouth starts to feel dry, I drink.

You're right in that warm-but-not-hot weather can be deceptive. I've been on short rides (20Km or less) where I've conked out at the halfway mark from dehydration. Then I looked at my water bottle and it was untouched! No surprises there. Trying to fix it after the fact is a struggle. And nothing says "this sucks" like riding home on a completely flat route on an easy gear and still feeling like death.

I find that Gatorade is good for staving off dehydration. Once dehydrated, however, the best fix (for me) is Powerade. I don't understand why Gatorade doesn't do the trick here, but at least I know what works.

Max

[Crankin]

I've noticed a strange, but similar phenomena. I use Accelerade. Usually I finish it rather quickly, so if it's going to be a long ride, I will buy a bottle of Gatorade or, better, GU2O at a store (I like to keep my second bottle full of plain water). I always feel much better after drinking the Gatorade or GU2O. Not sure why. I use Accelerade for the protein and less sugar. But, maybe I need the sugar and should forget about worrying about it.

[marni]

yes you can get dehydrated in freezing or cold or cool weather as well as hot, you just don't feel so thirsty when it is cooler. Unless it is pouring rain and cool, the air is generally drier when it is cool.

You can do a concentrated study of your sweat rate per mile by weighing yourself naked, gearing up, riding your average pace for as hour out and an hour back, ungear, weigh yourself again, subtract the second weight from the first to see how much weight you lost to sweat, add in 8 ounces for every 8 oz. equivalent of liquid you consumed and you will have your average sweat rate per hour for those particular weather conditions. Do it on several different days with different weather conditions, always on the same route, and you will have an idea of how much you should be drinking per hour.

My particular rate is between 12 and 18 oz per hour which works out to 2/3 a bottle of frs or water per hour. I alternate bottles and carry extra tubes of FRS so that I can buy plain water and mix a fresh batch on longer rides.

The bonk is insidious, and usually by the time you notice that you are bonking, you have tonconvince yourself that you don't have two flat tires and that the world is not spinning.

easiest thing to do is to stay ahead of it, even if it mean you have to stop and pee a bit more often.

marni

[Jiffer]

Well, it looks like the weather is going to be similar when I do my event this weekend of 60 miles with 6,000 feet of climbing. High of 69, which is at least a degree or two cooler, but I'll just assume it's going to be as warm or warmer as it was last Sunday. So, I'll have an opportunity to work on my hydration skills.

I did about 25 miles yesterday and worked on drinking every ten minutes whether it seemed like I needed to or not. I think that's a good rule. Sometimes you might only take a small sip if you really don't think you need more (like it's 40 degrees outside!) ... or take a lot more if it's warmer, but I like the idea of being conscious of it every ten minutes one way or the other. Seemed to work well yesterday. I'm pretty sure I drank more than I normally would have for that ride. Whether I needed it or not, it was good practice.

One thing that messes with my drinking on climbing rides is ... well ... the climbing. If it's a constant climb for several miles, like it was on Sunday, it's harder to take a drink. You're working hard to get up the climb and might be breathing hard. You have to stop breathing for a second or two to drink. You just want to get it over with and don't want to slow down to take a drink. But I gotta get over this ... obviously!

[SheFly]

Try pre-hydrating. Drink a lot leading up to your event. It won't prevent dehydration or negate the fact that you still need to drink on your ride, but it will help. I do this for long races/events, and it has always helped me to avoid being quite as bad off as I may have been otherwise.

And yes - winter dehydration is equally as bad, and I've suffered that more times than I care to count. Seems more natural to drink when it's hot out, I guess.

SheFly