I've written about how, towards the end of long runs, I tend to be dying rather. I've been putting this down to dehydration, but following on from the hot day on Saturday there has been a lot of discussion on the PFit boards about sodium levels too. One article linked to suggests that a runner will often sweat a litre an hour, and may lose over three grammes of salt with each litre of sweat. Since low sodium levels look a lot like dehydration, this might well be contributing to my long run collapses.

I shall check the sodium content of the Clif Shots I take during the race, and also that of the Gatorade I drink (although that is known to be low sodium - it's even advertised on the bottles - so it probably won't make much odds), then think about how to (1) get more salt in my body beforehand, and (2) take salt during a run. Both salty pretzels and salt tablets have been suggested; not sure I'm comfortable with either of those, actually.

There is always concern about high blood pressure whenever salt is mentioned (indeed, this is one reason why salt has been so effectively excised from many of our diets) but I already have quite low blood pressure so I am not worried about that. And of course I'm talking here specifically about taking extra ionic sodium as part of race preparation in order to replace what is being lost during extraordinary stress rather than as a constant part of my diet.

It's certainly something I want to try, because I've been very uncomfortable at the end of the long runs and while I hardly expect to be fresh as a daisy after running for two hours or more, I find my utter collapse to be unacceptable.

Posted by Dunx at June 10, 2003 11:56 AM