Staying Cool and Hydrated in your races

During my race on Saturday, I mainly stuck with my tried and true nutrition and hydration choices. I used Tailwind and SportBeans. 

My daughter was crewing me for this race so to make it easier on her, I premade my Tailwind/water mixture. This helped her in that she only needed to refill my Camelbaks without worrying about the portioning of the Tailwind to water mixture correctly. From my perspective, I knew the consistency was going to be the same. 

I had picked some different flavors of SportBeans. One was a multi flavored pack which I didn't really like. I find that I like strong tart flavors. I am sure that there is a reason for this. However, I don't know what it is. All I can say the more tart the flavor the better that I like it later in a race. 

In addition to Tailwind and SportBeans, I was eating watermelon. After 30 miles, the temperature was rising, so I started asking for watermelon. Something about watermelon seemed to help. Maybe it helps with cooling my core temperature. I know that I certainly felt better. 

I also started asking for ice. I put some in my cap in hopes that it would cool my head. I also few pieces in my mouth. Not exactly a great idea while running, and I would advise against others doing it. 

Between the top my Camelbak and back, there is a nook. I placed several pieces of ice here. That really felt good. The iced lastly longer in my cap, but the ice in this nook melted, and the cool water ran down over my back. Like I said, this felt really good. 

I wish that I had been better acclimated for warmer days. But other than a few days, NC has been pretty cool this year. Only in the last few weeks before the race did the temperature get in to the 90s. I did try to tailor my runs to run when it was warmer. Not sure that it helped much.  

After all of my races, I make notes of what I think worked and what I think didn't. Those that didn't I removed from trying again. Then, I spend some time pondering new things that I might want to try. I then test them during my training runs. If they seem to work, I add them to my race list. However, I will say that just because it seems to work during my training doesn't make it a "for sure" to work on race day.

That's what makes humans rise above all others. We "hopefully" learn from our struggles. Sometimes, we are just slower than we should be. 

Cool Down Runner Adventures