I suffered a mild case of this condition when cycling in the mojave desert in 98 deg heat one year, had no idea. Now that I know about it, I always eat pretzels, use electrolyte pills, eat salty foods. Now I never suffer from this, even if I drink 6 liters of water, but I never drink 3 gallons.
Originally Posted by lilHinault
OK people you're creeping me out ..... see a couple'a weeks ago I rode all over heck and gone going to the Hellyer velodrome on my SS, by my usual takes-hours-because-I'm-lost route, and then rode back on Capitol Expressway, yep past all the car dealers etc., no other cyclists out there, it was friggin' HOT. And before starting out, I grabbed a bottle of water at the local Starbuckies, and drank some each time I stopped to look at my map (I looked at my map a lot).
Well, this is weird but near the end of the ride I had a weird feeling of my head swelling. It was strange. Funny thing, the water for some reason was "0 sodium". I probably did about 30 miles, and I never got to any stage of nausea etc., but something didn't seem quite right. It was a large bicycle bottle's worth, and I used a bit to wash my face sparingly at Hellyer Park, so I was not drinking tons of the stuff, but wow, maybe those nice salty pretzels biker G. Bush swears at, er, by, are a good idea.