I need to try this as its getting warm
Does anyone find sodium loading can mess with their ability to hold water during a race (needing to pee loads on the bike)?
Know the normal idea is that sodium loading aids in water rentaoin. But seems the opposite to me. Whenever I try it leading into an Ironman, I just find myself needing to pee loads on the bike. Honestly, it seems like more is coming out than I am drinking.
I have not been sweat tested but suspect my sweat rate & concentration are on the low side.
This is based on the amount of sweat post-session when compared to others & never really get salt marks on the kit.
Other ideas for the problem could be:
Insulin response to high amounts of carbs
Saddle pressure
Nerves
But these don’t present the problem in training.
No, quite the opposite for me. I’ve done some consumer-grade testing and sweat ~1100-1200mg / L. Leading up to races the day before generally I’ll drink a couple liters at that concentration, and a little bit at that concentration 3-4 hours before, maybe .5L
At the starting line I’ve taken to drinking .5L with 1600mg sodium and 50g carbs, then will start fueling 30min into the event. During races, events, and training, I hydrate with the 1100-1200 mg/L mix. If I drop the sodium content, I pee more.
Has been working great for me out to a 9 hour event. If it’s cold out and I over-hydrate I’ll still need to pee, during the 9 hour event I just did that was twice over the entire race (temperatures started cool and rainy close to 40 deg F)
One thing that’s helped for me though - Separate fueling and hydration. Where I’m fine taking all my carbs in as liquid while training, I switch to gels for races so I’m not taking in extra fluids that I have to pee out. Sodium doesn’t mean that you can just take in too much fluid if you’re not sweating it out, and I think it’s easy to do that if you’re relying on liquid fueling.
It’s the opposite for me. But 48 hours later, the flood gates open.