Originally Posted by
pdlamb
I just scanned the Hammer article, and what caught my eye was in the last paragraph: "It only takes a few hundred milligrams every 15-20 minutes in the hottest environment to sustain aerobic pace." So after nice four hour weekend ride, I may need 4,000 mg of salt!? That sounds like Hammer's pretty firmly in the pro-salt camp, only they'd prefer I buy their expensive pills instead of shaking a salt shaker.
Just as an aside, those terrible salt pills you have to ask a pharmacist to buy cost about $3 for 100 pills, and each pill has the equivalent of four or five wonderful "electrolyte" pills that cost 5-6X as much, but at least you can find the wonder pills on the open shelves in your LBS or running store.
Normal sweat rates can range from 0.75 to 2 Liters/hour, depending on conditions such as temperature, humidity, pace, clothing, and the degree of heat acclimation the rider has. A rate of one Liter/hour is not uncommon for an acclimated cyclist. At that rate, typical electrolyte loss rates by sweat are 1,300 mg/hr for sodium, and 230 mg/hr for potassium.
https://www.ultracycling.com/section...ectrolytes.php
IIRC, Hammer recommends replacing about 1/2 of sodium losses during an event. One of the advantages of some of those electrolyte pills is the small amount of each electrolyte/pill. Standard Endurolytes are 80 mg sodium/cap. On long rides in the 70's, I usually take ~1/hr; in the 80's and above, 2/hr. I've never taken more than 2/hr., though on this last RAMROD I probably should have. Endurolytes Extreme are 120 mg sodium/cap. Saltsticks are 215 mg sodium/cap. I've seen people barf from using salt tabs. Barfing and diarrhea are the worst possible things in the heat.
One of the things I run across on hot events is folks who can't eat. Not being able to eat can mean a DNF and is a sign of being low on sodium. 2 Endurolytes with water will usually fix them right up.