Hydration – Don’t screw up your race!

Hydration – Don’t screw up your race!

Mike Osmond  /  May 27, 2014

For athletes new to triathlon, hydration can be a component that is easily overlooked, but yet as important as being able to swim, bike and run well. Poor hydration during a race can totally undermine all of the training you have done, and proper hydration grows in importance as the races get longer.

Good hydration doesn’t just start on the day of the race. Particular attention should also be paid to sipping on a water bottle in the final few days leading up to your race, particularly if it is a half or full ironman distance. Many of us are usually functioning in a slightly dehydrated state, with work, training, and just life, we forget to keep our ourselves well hydrated, and being dehydrated as little as 2 percent can begin to increase fatigue and affect your performance.

Training sessions are a good way to work out how much you need to drink on your bike or on the run. As a rule of thumb, I try to drink around one bike bottle per hour. This will vary depending on the conditions, with very warm days often requiring more than this. Training days also provide good opportunities to find an electrolyte product or nutrition that agrees with your stomach. If it is a longer distance race, find out what the drink product that will be available at the aid stations is, and experiment with it in training. You should never go into a race and try something new. If the product doesn’t agree with you, then you need to develop a strategy to carry with you what you will need.

On race day, I sip a bottle of fluid before the race. During the swim, you should obviously not try to drink the water you are swimming in, so by the time you get on the bike you will be slightly dehydrated. As soon as you feel comfortable on your bike, start drinking. And be conscious of this throughout the bike ride, with one bottle an hour also being a good guide. If you start the run leg with major dehydration, it is difficult to drink enough on the run to make it up, but use the aid stations to maintain some fluid intake.

Practice in training will lead to the development of good habits, helping to ensure your success on race day.