Heat injuries and food

[Melalvai]

I guess I would have died for food if I had only eaten a couple of bananas on that ride. Electrolytes are indeed very helpful and the nutrition suggestions above should be appreciated - but I also wonder what type of clothes you were wearing, which let you heat up so "tragically"... huh. Actually, I never feel so hot when riding, the sweat cools me well.

I was wearing a jersey & shorts. It wasn't a bike jersey, but it was a tech-t. It was hot & humid. The breeze cools me off on the downhills but there is no breeze going uphill.

I've taken V8 with me on the last few rides, and it does wonderfully. In fact I wasn't quite so ravenous at the end of the rides as I usually am!

One of my biking buddies is a pharmacology prof and he looked askance at the 320 mg potassium and 290 mg sodium in one little can of V8, and I drank 4 of them. But I also drank a lot of water, and I sweat A LOT. I think I sweat more than others, certainly more than the people I bike with. So I have to replace more water & electrolytes. Yeah, that's almost 1.2 g of sodium I took in, and maybe I didn't sweat out quite that much, I probably would have been all right with 3 cans. But 4 was not overdoing it.

[OakLeaf]

I don't think that's too much sodium at all. Especially this early in the season when you're not acclimated to the heat. It might not be enough. A pharmacologist is not an exercise physiologist ...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18226265 - (550-750 mg/hour sodium lost in sweat)

http://www.training-conditioning.com...eir_sweat.html (layperson's summary that I didn't chase the references, but claiming 1-2 g/hour sodium lost in sweat in a study of football players)

Personally, I'm so prone to a mild hyponatremia that it's (finally) the first thing I suspect any time I'm nauseous. I'm not even a particularly salty sweater when I'm acclimated to the heat, but I do sweat profusely, I eat mostly real food, and I have to be very liberal with the salt shaker and the Zenergize (500+ mg sodium per tablet) to avoid problems whenever I'm doing much of anything outside.

[ny biker]

If you're ravenous at the end of the ride, you're not getting enough calories.

V8 doesn't just have salt and potassium, it also has calories.

[Melalvai]

Appetite & calories aren't as closely linked as you might think. V8 has the same calories per volume as Gatorade.

Thanks for those links, OakLeaf. I forwarded them to the pharm prof. I'm sure he'll appreciate me saying "I told you so".

[ny biker]

Appetite & calories aren't as closely linked as you might think. V8 has the same calories per volume as Gatorade.

Thanks for those links, OakLeaf. I forwarded them to the pharm prof. I'm sure he'll appreciate me saying "I told you so".

But you weren't drinking Gatorade, you were drinking water. So you're getting more calories now with the V8.

[Melalvai]

Not really, because when I only had water it was because I'd already eaten the banana I brought.