My Running Journal, 031210

Crossfit today. Workout was relatively “easy,” insofar as I didn’t feel like vomiting afterwards. Today was a 2 part set, A set was all chest and triceps – 4 rounds, A1 benchpress 3-5 reps at a 5/0 tempo (lower for five seconds, explosive press up) and then rest 20 seconds, A2 3-5 dips then rest 20 seconds, A3 AMRAP pushups and rest. B was L-Sit compressions – sit on the floor, lift feet off of the ground with legs straight and fingertips pressing down on the floor, 5 second lift, 15 second rest, 15 reps.

Pretty simple, right? The wheels completely came off in my second round of the A set – my bench press was fine, but it has been a really, really long time since I have done dips, and between being on a gym floor at 7am and the bench presses, my pushups, were a little spotty.

But I got it done, and I feel good about being back in the swing with Crossfit.

Yesterday afternoon I had this creeping suspicion that I was dehydrated. I’ve been drinking water, but I tend to forget to for long stretches of time. Since starting running and working out in general, I’ve been trying to keep hydrated, but apparently I had fallen back into my usual pattern, which is to get wound up in whatever it is that I happen to be doing at the moment, and then 2 hours (or more) into it, realize that I haven’t had a drink of water in 2 hours. The general idea is that, once you realize that you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated. So waiting for thirst to drink water is a relatively bad idea, especially with a marathon as a goal. And I seem to have paid for my forgetfulness to hydrate in several scenarios over many, many years. The most recent being the soreness in my feet and legs. Yesterday afternoon I was hobbling around the office, and I thought that my legs shouldn’t be as sore as they were. Yes, I have been hammering them into the ground, but I’ve had muscle over-use ache before, and this seemed a little on the ridiculous side – especially since there was no sharp pain.

I did a mental checklist of all of the things that I have been doing to stave off the hurt. Anti-oxidant supplements? Check. Hot soaks after runs? Check. Proper stretching, massage, and acupuncture? Check. So what was missing? Simply H2O.

In Boot Camp all of those years ago, one of the things that the Drill Instructors seemed to get a sadistic kick out of was making sure the recruits were properly hydrated. Back then, we were issued 2 1 quart canteens as part of our wargear. When your canteen is less than completely full of water, it sloshes, and makes a considerable amount of noise when you walk or run. So either the canteens on your belt had to be empty, or full – and the only time they were allowed to be empty was if you had just drained them from full. You (as a recruit) were also never allowed to pass out because of heat exhaustion or heat stroke because you weren’t hydrated properly. We would, on a regular basis, have to drain both canteens as quickly as possible into our bodies. Try drinking 2 quarts of water as fast as you can while someone is screaming at you to ‘DRINK!” and then holding the empty canteens, opening down, above your head. And don’t vomit, because you will just have to refill those canteens and drink again.

As sadistic as this sounds, it actually served a purpose beyond the apparent hazing. The most useful place, for a human, to store water is in their body. When you are continually engaging in strenuous exercise, you need to replenish that water. Evidently, a good estimate of how much water you should drink per day, in ounces, is to take your body weight in pounds and divide by 2. The resulting number is a rough estimate of how much water you need to drink, daily, while leading a relatively sedentary life (which means that a person my weight should be drinking at least 3 quarts of water). As you increase your activity levels, so your need to replenish your water increases. So six, maybe eight quarts of water in a day isn’t unreasonable in a hot, humid climate, especially if you are intensely physically active.

How much water have I been drinking per day? Probably on the order of 2 to 3 quarts per day. Which would be fine if I hadn’t started running. My body needs more water, and not just to keep the fluid levels up. All of the metabolic waste that accumulates in your muscles after loading them (lactic acid and such) needs to be flushed out. More water should equate to a faster flushing.

So I doubled my normal water intake last night. Needless to say, I had to get up in the middle of the night, but my calves aren’t as sore as they have been.

I think I need to program my phone to alert me every 30 minutes to drink at least 8 ounces of water. And then I’ll get up every 25 minutes to pee.

You’d think that I would remember my own advice?